Currently accepted gold standard methods of influenza detection, viral culture and rRT-PCR, are time consuming, expensive and require special training and laboratory facilities.
Therefore, it is a valuable addition to other detection methods of influenza virus infection such as immunotitration and RNA hybridisation.
In this retrospective cohort study, we aimed to identify and evaluate 3 electronic methods of influenza case detection during 1 peak of influenza A(H1N1 pdm09.
The potential of devasting pandemic influenza outbreaks has attracted a great amount of resources and efforts in the search for possible prevention and effective treatment methods of influenza A infections.
Vaccination is an important method of preventing influenza and its severe complications.
Vaccination remains the most effective method of preventing influenza and its consequences, however, vaccine effectiveness decreases with increasing age and increasing immunosenescence.
15 We found that participants who believed that the vaccine was the most effective method of preventing influenza were most likely to be vaccinated.
Due to its speed, sensitivity, and specificity, real-time RT-PCR (RRT-PCR) has been recognized as an attractive method of detecting influenza viruses.
Vaccination remains the most effective method of preventing influenza virus infection [ 43], and the effectiveness of RSV candidate vaccines is being evaluated [ 44, 45] and when available could potentially substantially reduce the elevated burden of hospitalization especially in young children.
Therefore, we set out to improve the method making use of the benefits of our first protocol but adding usability and broadening the spectrum of the method to influenza A viruses regardless of the subtype.
