Annual and weekly incidence rates of influenza and pediatric diseases estimated from infectious disease surveillance data in Japan, 2002-2005.
BACKGROUND
The method for estimating incidence of infectious diseases from sentinel surveillance data has been proposed. In Japan, although the annual incidence rates of influenza and pediatric diseases estimated using the method were reported, their weekly incidence rates have not.


METHODS
The weekly sex- and age-specific numbers of cases in the sentinel medical institutions in the National Epidemiological Surveillance of Infectious Diseases in Japan in 2002-2005 were used. Annual and weekly incidence rates of influenza and 12 pediatric diseases were estimated by the above-mentioned method, under the assumption that sentinels are randomly selected from all medical institutions.


RESULTS
The annual incidence rate of influenza in 2002-2005 was 57.7-142.6 per 1,000 population. The highest weekly incidence rate was 7.4 at week 8 in 2002, 14.9 at week 4 in 2003, 14.1 at week 5 in 2004, and 21.2 at week 9 in 2005. The annual incidence rate per 1,000 population of 0-14 years old in 2002-2005 was less than 5.0 for pertussis, rubella and measles, 293.2-320.8 for infectious gastroenteritis, and 5.3-89.6 for 8 other diseases. The highest weekly incidence rate was less than 1.0 for exanthem subitum, and was more than 5.0 for infectious gastroenteritis, hand-foot-mouth disease and herpangina.


CONCLUSIONS
We estimated annual and weekly incidence rates of influenza and pediatric diseases in Japan in 2002-2005, and described their temporal variation.
Kawado
Miyuki
M
Department of Hygiene, Fujita Health University School of Medicine, 1-98, Kutsukake-cho, Toyoake, Aichi 470-1192, Japan. kawado@fujita-hu.ac.jp
Hashimoto
Shuji
S
Murakami
Yoshitaka
Y
Izumida
Michiko
M
Ohta
Akiko
A
Tada
Yuki
Y
Shigematsu
Mika
M
Yasui
Yoshinori
Y
Taniguchi
Kiyosu
K
Nagai
Masaki
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007251:Influenza, Human / Q000453:epidemiology*; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010372:Pediatrics; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*