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Title: Comparison of influenza disease burden in older populations of Hong Kong and Brisbane : the impact of influenza and pneumococcal vaccination
Authors: Yang, L 
Chan, KP
Wong, CM
Chiu, SSS
Magalhaes, RJS
Thach, TQ
Peiris, JSM
Clements, ACA
Hu, W
Issue Date: 2019
Source: BMC infectious diseases, 14 Feb. 2019, v. 19, 162, p. 1-8
Abstract: Background: Influenza and pneumococcal vaccine uptake in the older population aged 65 years or over of Hong Kong dramatically increased since the 2003 SARS outbreak. This study is aimed to evaluate the impact of increased coverage of influenza and pneumococcal vaccines by comparing the change of disease burden in the older population of Hong Kong, with the burden in the older population of Brisbane with relatively high vaccine coverage in the past fifteen years.
Methods: Time series segmented regression models were applied to weekly numbers of cause-specific mortality or hospitalization of Hong Kong and Brisbane. Annual excess rates of mortality or hospitalization associated with influenza in the older population were estimated for the pre-SARS (reference period), post-SARS and post-pandemic period, respectively. The rate ratios (RRs) between these periods were also calculated to assess the relative change of disease burden.
Results: Compared to the pre-SARS period, excess rates of mortality associated with influenza during the post-SARS period in Hong Kong decreased for cardiorespiratory diseases (RR = 0.90, 95% CI 0.80, 1.01), stroke (RR = 0.74, 95% CI 0.50, 1.09), and ischemic heart diseases (RR = 0.45, 95% CI 0.34, 0.58). The corresponding RRs in Brisbane were 0.79 (95% CI 0.54, 1.15), 0.33 (0.13, 0.80), and 1.09 (0.62, 1.90), respectively. Only the mortality of ischemic heart diseases showed a greater reduction in Hong Kong than in Brisbane. During the post-pandemic period, excess rates of all-cause mortality increased in Hong Kong, but to a lesser extent than in Brisbane (RR = 1.41 vs 2.39).
Conclusion: A relative decrease (or less of an increase) of influenza disease burden was observed in the older population of Hong Kong after increased coverage of influenza and pneumococcal vaccines in this population, as compared to those of Brisbane where vaccination rates remained stable. The lack of significant findings in some disease categories highlights the challenges of evaluating the benefits of vaccination at the population level.
Keywords: Disease burden
Elderly
Influenza
Morbidity
Mortality
Vaccine
Publisher: BioMed Central
Journal: BMC infectious diseases 
EISSN: 1471-2334
DOI: 10.1186/s12879-019-3735-7
Rights: © The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
The following publication Yang, L., Chan, K.P., Wong, C.M. et al. Comparison of influenza disease burden in older populations of Hong Kong and Brisbane: the impact of influenza and pneumococcal vaccination. BMC Infect Dis 19, 162 (2019) is available at https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12879-019-3735-7
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