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About the Authors:
Gerardo Chowell
* E-mail: [email protected]
Affiliations Division of Epidemiology and Population Studies, Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America, Mathematical, Computational & Modeling Sciences Center, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America
Santiago Echevarría-Zuno
Affiliation: Dirección de Prestaciones Médicas, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico City, México
Cécile Viboud
Affiliation: Division of Epidemiology and Population Studies, Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
Lone Simonsen
Affiliations Division of Epidemiology and Population Studies, Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America, Department of Global Health, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Washington, D.C., United States of America
Mark A. Miller
Affiliation: Division of Epidemiology and Population Studies, Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
Irma Fernández-Gárate
Affiliation: Coordinación de Programas Integrados de Salud, Dirección de Prestaciones Médicas, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico City, México
Cesar González-Bonilla
Affiliation: Coordinación de Vigilancia Epidemiológica y Apoyo en Contingencias, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico City, México
Víctor H. Borja-Aburto
Affiliation: Coordinación de Vigilancia Epidemiológica y Apoyo en Contingencias, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico City, México
Introduction
A number of researchers have explored the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of novel A/H1N1 influenza in different populations around the globe (e.g., [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]), but analyses of large individual-level clinical data spanning multiple geographic regions and disease severity outcomes of A/H1N1 infections are scarce. These studies could be crucial to quantify the role of underlying population health, case management, hospital admission delays and potential changes in the influenza virus characteristics on the mortality burden of the 2009 A/H1N1 influenza pandemic across countries [13].
The 2009 A/H1N1 influenza pandemic virus spread heterogeneously throughout Mexico [14], [15], [16], [17], in a series of three pandemic waves in the spring, summer, and fall of 2009, which were associated with high mortality impact relative to other countries [13], [18], [19]. Although a preliminary analysis of the epidemiological characteristics and risk factors for A/H1N1 influenza infections has been carried out for the spring-summer pandemic period in Mexico...