Suchergebnisse

An outbreak of influenza-like disease caused illness among 48 per cent of 173 female military recruits, 35 per cent of whom smoked cigarettes. The risk of influenza-like illness was greater in smokers (60.0 per cent) than in nonsmokers (41.6 per cent), with a risk ratio of 1.44 (95 per cent CL 1.03-2.01). Among those ill, a significantly greater proportion of smokers visited the clinic than nonsmokers. This could have been due to more severe illness among smokers, or to a greater tendency to visit the physician. The proportion of influenza-like disease attributable to smoking in this population was 13 per cent.

An outbreak of influenza caused by the A(H1N1) subtype in military recruits in February 1978 afforded an opportunity to study the association of ABO blood groups with influenza morbidity and serological response. Fifty-eight per cent of 336 recruits became clinically ill. There was no differential distribution of clinical influenza by blood group. However, seroconversion to a titre of greater than or equal to 20 was significantly and appreciably higher in groups A and B than O and AB. Also, among those with serologically confirmed clinical influenza, the occurrence was significantly higher in groups A and B than groups O and AB.

Seroconversion to hepatitis A virus was studied in a sub sample of 802 Israeli military recruits (611 men and 191 women) who were taking part in a randomised controlled trial of pre-exposure immune serum globulin (ISG) for the prevention of viral hepatitis. On intake into the service 35% of the men and 47% of the women were negative to hepatitis. A virus antibody (anti-HAV). After three years 7 of 71 men (9.9%) who had not received pre-exposure ISG had become positive to anti-HAV compared to 2 of 83 (2.4%) who had received it; the statistical significance of this difference was p = 0.052. At two years 2 of 30 women (6.7%) who had not received ISG had converted compared to 1 of 43 (2.3%) who had received ISG (p = 0.37). Pooling the sexes gave conversion rates of 8.9% in those not immunised and 2.4% in those immunised (p = 0.029). The sex adjusted odds ratio was 4.0 (95% confidence limits 1.3-19.0). The morbidity rates for clinical non B hepatitis over the three year period among 12 835 men were 7.2 per 1000 in those not immunised and 3.6 per 1000 in those immunised (p = 0.004). Point estimates of the ratio of clinical hepatitis to seroconversion in men ranged from 0.25 to 0.30. It is concluded that pre-exposure administration of ISG effectively prevented clinical expression of viral hepatitis, apparently reduced seroconversion, and did not induce passive-active immunisation.