The Epidemiology of Influenza in Children Hospitalized at the Hospital of Sikasso, Mali 2015-2019

Introduction: Influenza is an acute respiratory infectious disease, highly contagious due to influenza viruses. The objective of this work was to identify, understand the epidemiology of circulating strains and estimate disease transmission. Patients and Methods: The study was carried out in the pediatric department of the Sikasso Hospital. This was a prospective, longitudinal descriptive study over a five-year period (January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2019). She was interested in severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) for hospitalized patients in the pediatric department. Results: During the study period the prevalence of severe acute respiratory infections among hospitalized children was 21.85‰. The majority of cases were observed in 2019 with 58 cases, the sex ratio was 1.8. The age group from 0 to 1 was the most represented with 100 cases (48.30%) followed by 2 to 4 years 73 cases (35.24%) and 5 to 15 years 34 cases (16.46%). More than half of the patients lived in rural areas 129 (62.31%). Fever and cough were present in the majority of patients. No children had received influenza vaccination. In study 36 (17.39%) cases were positive for influenza A and B.