Disputable issues of the epidemiology and prevention of influenza according to the results of a preliminary analysis of the epidemic situation in 2009-2010

The general regularities of the occurrence and development of the influenza pandemic declared by the WHO in June 2009 are considered from the epidemiological and clinical points of view. The authors analyze the official data characterizing intensity, trends, and morbidity structure by disease risk groups and poor outcomes, as well as other indicators of damage by influenza, virological and molecular biological data on its causative agent and trends in its etiological restructure by the periods of the pandemic and its results in Russia and worldwide. It is concluded that this pandemic differs greatly from its indicators of those prior ones towards its mildness and a less total damage to the population, but no absence of an antigenic shift and the considerable similarity of the structure of swine virus with a related anthroponotic agent that has been circulating for many years throw doubt on its pandemicity and high pathogenicity. In this connection, a package of disputable theoretical and practical issues whose solution can give more insight into the epidemiology of influenza, as well as the ways to improve epidemiological surveillance and epidemic and pandemic control tactics are brought up for discussion.

influenza A(H1N1)swl, pandemic and epidemic, epidemiological situation, disputable problems