Influenza species and subtypes circulation among hospitalized patients in Laleh hospital during two influenza seasonal (2016-2017 and 2017-2018) using a multiplex Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction

Azhar, Iman Rezaee; Mohraz, Minoo; Mardani, Masoud; Tavakoli, Mohammad Ali; Afshar, Amin Ehteshami; Zamani, Mohammad; Sadeghpoor, Simin; Safari, Saeid; Dadashpoor, Roozbeh; Rezaee, Mahsa; Shirvani, Fariba; Azimi, Shohreh; Heydarifard, Zahra; Ranjbar, Hamidreza Hagh; Lotfi, Amir Hossain; Mosadegh, Farhad; Hashemnejad, Farhad; Jazayeri, Seyed Mohammad

Period of hospitalization ranged between 1 and 34 days with a mean duration of 4.71±4.42 days for all patients. However, this period was shorter for patients in group I (4.39±3.86 and 5.06±4.93 days for groups I and II, respectively, P, 0.016; Tables 1 and 2). In age group comparisons, on average, patients under 40 years old tended to be hospitalized for less than 5 days, whereas, for those who were more than 40 years old this duration increased to more than 5 days (Table 2 ). Most flu positive cases that were diagnosed according to the type of clinical specimen included: nasopharyngeal (65%), throat swab (30%) and sputum (5%) samples, suggesting higher sensitivity of the test when applied to nasopharyngeal swab as compared to other respiratory specimens (Table 1 ).