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. 2014 Mar 27;9(3):e93227.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0093227. eCollection 2014.

Influenza-like illnesses in Senegal: not only focus on influenza viruses

Ndongo Dia  1 , Fatoumata Diene Sarr  2 , Diamilatou Thiam  2 , Tening Faye Sarr  2 , Emmanuelle Espié  2 , Ibrahim OmarBa  3 , Malang Coly  4 , Mbayame Niang  1 , Vincent Richard  2 ; 4S Network Group
Collaborators, Affiliations

Influenza-like illnesses in Senegal: not only focus on influenza viruses

Ndongo Dia et al. PLoS One. .

Erratum in

  • PLoS One. 2014;9(6):e101722

Abstract

Influenza surveillance in African countries was initially restricted to the identification of circulating strains. In Senegal, the network has recently been enhanced (i) to include epidemiological data from Dakar and other regions and (ii) to extend virological surveillance to other respiratory viruses. Epidemiological data from the sentinel sites is transmitted daily by mobile phone. The data include those for other febrile syndromes similar to influenza-like illnesses (ILI), corresponding to integrated approach. Also, clinical samples are randomly selected and analyzed for influenza and other respiratory viruses. There were 101,640 declared visits to the 11 sentinel sites between week 11-2012 and week 35-2013; 22% of the visits were for fever syndromes and 23% of the cases of fever syndrome were ILI. Influenza viruses were the second most frequent cause of ILI (20%), after adenoviruses (21%) and before rhinoviruses (18%) and enteroviruses (15%). Co-circulation and co-infection were frequent and were responsible for ILI peaks. The first months of implementation of the enhanced surveillance system confirmed that viruses other the influenza make large contributions to influenza-like illnesses. It is therefore important to consider these etiologies in the development of strategies to reduce respiratory infections. More informative tools and research studies are required to assess the burden of respiratory infections in developing countries.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Location of the sentinel sites in Senegal 2013.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Mean daily visit counts in the sentinel surveillance network in Senegal and daily sentinel surveillance time series plots (%) of total visits for fever, daily visit counts and total ILI for daily total fever syndromes with the moving average (over 10 days – red curve), from Week 11-2012 to Week 35-2013.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Data from all the sentinel sites by week, 2012–2013.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Data from Dakar by week, 2012–2013.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Distribution of different respiratory viruses in Dakar by week, 2012–2013.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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