Influenza Pandemics and Tuberculosis Mortality in 1889 and 1918: Analysis of Historical Data from Switzerland

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2016 Oct 6

PMID 27706149

Citations 20

Authors

Kathrin Zurcher

Marcel Zwahlen

Marie Ballif

Hans L Rieder

Matthias Egger

Lukas Fenner

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) mortality declined in the northern hemisphere over the last 200 years, but peaked during the Russian (1889) and the Spanish (1918) influenza pandemics. We studied the impact of these two pandemics on TB mortality.

Methods: We retrieved historic data from mortality registers for the city of Bern and countrywide for Switzerland. We used Poisson regression models to quantify the excess pulmonary TB (PTB) mortality attributable to influenza.

Results: Yearly PTB mortality rates increased during both influenza pandemics. Monthly influenza and PTB mortality rates peaked during winter and early spring. In Bern, for an increase of 100 influenza deaths (per 100,000 population) monthly PTB mortality rates increased by a factor of 1.5 (95%Cl 1.4-1.6, p<0.001) during the Russian, and 3.6 (95%Cl 0.7-18.0, p = 0.13) during the Spanish pandemic. Nationally, the factor was 2.0 (95%Cl 1.8-2.2, p<0.001) and 1.5 (95%Cl 1.1-1.9, p = 0.004), respectively. We did not observe any excess cancer or extrapulmonary TB mortality (as a negative control) during the influenza pandemics.

Conclusions: We demonstrate excess PTB mortality during historic influenza pandemics in Switzerland, which supports a role for influenza vaccination in PTB patients in high TB incidence countries.

Citing Articles

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