The Turkish Journal of Pediatrics
2012 , Vol 54 , Num 6
Two Seasons’ Experience with Pandemic A H1N1 Influenza Infection in Neonates
1Mother and Child Health Care Institute “Dr Vukan Cupic” and 2Institute of Virology, Vaccine and Sera “Torlak”,
Belgrade, Serbia. E-mail: jelena@net2yu.net
There are only a few reports on influenza A H1N1 infection in neonates. In
this paper, we present our additional experience on the clinical characteristics,
epidemiology and treatment of influenza A H1N1 (2009) infection in 10
newborn infants (aged 9-24 days). Influenza A H1N1 infection was confirmed by
real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction of the nasopharyngeal
swab specimens. The majority of neonates presented with fever, respiratory
symptoms and lethargy. The respiratory illness ranged from mild symptoms
to severe pneumonia requiring mechanical ventilation. Antiviral treatment
with oseltamivir was started in five patients (50%). One lethal outcome was
observed, while nine patients (90%) had complete recovery. To our knowledge,
this is the largest presented series of neonatal cases with different clinical
symptoms. We discuss the necessity of initiation of oseltamivir in infants
with different clinical features.
Keywords :
neonate, influenza, H1N1, oseltamivir.