Early estimates of the excess mortality associated with the 2008-9 influenza season in Portugal

P J Nogueira; B Nunes; A Machado; E Rodrigues; V Gómez; L Sousa; J M Falcão

doi:10.2807/ese.14.18.19194-en

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Early estimates of the excess mortality associated with the 2008-9 influenza season in Portugal

P J Nogueira¹, B Nunes¹, A Machado¹, E Rodrigues¹, V Gómez¹, L Sousa¹, J M Falcão¹
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Affiliations: ¹ Departamento de Epidemiologia (Department of Epidemiology), Instituto Nacional de Saúde Dr. Ricardo Jorge (National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge, INSA), Lisbon, Portugal

Correspondence:
P Nogueira
paulo.nogueira insa.min-saude.pt
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Citation style for this article: Nogueira P J, Nunes B, Machado A, Rodrigues E, Gómez V, Sousa L, Falcão J M. Early estimates of the excess mortality associated with the 2008-9 influenza season in Portugal. Euro Surveill. 2009;14(18):pii=19194. https://doi.org/10.2807/ese.14.18.19194-en Received: 28 Apr 2009

Abstract

The aim of this study was to estimate the excess mortality associated with the influenza activity registered in Portugal between week 49 of 2008 and week 5 of 2009. For this purpose available mortality data from the Portuguese Daily Mortality Monitoring (VDM) System were used. Several estimates of excess deaths associated with the recent recorded influenza activity were determined through statistical modelling (cyclic regression) for the total population and disaggregated by gender and age group. The results show that the impact of the 2008-9 influenza season was 1,961 excess deaths, with approximately 82% of these occurring in the age group of 75 years and older.