Detection of Influenza in the Epidemic Season 2016/2017 Based on I-MOVE+ Project

In the influenza season 2016/2017 in Europe, the predominant virus was A/H3N2/. In Poland, the percentage of people vaccinated against influenza was 3.33%. European I-MOVE+ project shows how important it is to monitor the effectiveness of influenza vaccine. The project demonstrates that a match between the circulating vaccine strains and those included in the vaccine for the Northern Hemisphere was low-to-moderate. In the present study, there were 379 patients and 296 control subjects examined in hospitals in Poland as part of I-MOVE+ project. The real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) method was used to detect the influenza virus in all subjects. We detected the influenza subtype A/H3N2/ in 59.1% and type B virus in 2.1%. There was one co-infection of subtype A/H3N2/ with subtype A/H1N1/ and eight co-infections of type B with subtype A/H3N2/. No influenza viruses were detected in the control group. Only 19 patients and 22 control subjects were vaccinated during the epidemic season in question. A proportion of people vaccinated against influenza in Poland remains dismally low compared to other European countries.