International Union for Circumpolar Health Ministry of Public Health and Social Development of RF Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences Medical Polar Fund “Science” The Northern Forum

Abstracts

Seminar Infection Diseases in Arctic

Introduction: The incidence of invasive pneumococcal infections is very high in Greenland and other Arctic countries. However, it is unknown whether this applies only to inva-sive bacterial disease (IBD) caused by pneumococci or also by other microorgan-isms. We therefore carried out a study with the purpose to estimate the microor-ganism specific age-specific incidences of IBD in a 10-year period in Greenland.

Methods and design: Bacterial isolates cultured at the Central Laboratory at Dronning Ingrids Hospital in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, were identified for the period 1995-2004. This laboratory is the only specialised microbiological laboratory in Greenland and cul-tures all isolates from Nuuk besides those from coastal towns that are sent by mail. By linking sample information to the patients’ medical files information of age, sex, place of living, use of tobacco and alcohol, underlying medical condi-tions, and type of IBD, disease severity and outcome was obtained. Using census data from Statistics Greenland age-specific incidence rates of IBD were calcu-lated.

Results: In total isolates from 243 patients with IBD were identified. Seven patients were hospitalised twice and two patients three times, yielding a total of 254 hospitalisa-tions (45.4/100,000 persons/year). From these patients 276 bacterial isolates were identified, 197 from blood, 53 from CSF, and 26 from other places. As a few pa-tients had more than one microorganism identified in the same sample, the total number of isolated bacteria was 282.

The overall incidence of IBD caused by pneumococci was 16.4/100,000/year, by E. coli 7.9/100,000/year, S. aureus 6.3/100,000/year, N. meningitidis 2.7/100,000/year, HIB 2.3/100,000/year, GAS and GBS 1.3/100,000/year, and others 13.6/100,000/year. Overall, the distribution was U-shaped with highest incidence among the youngest children aged 0-2 years (112/100,000/year) and persons older than 35 years (for persons 65+ years up to 148/100,000/year). Between age 5 and 34 years the incidence was lower than 20/100,000/year.

Eighteen percent of patients died, 19% developed complications, while the remaining 63% recovered fully. The relative risk for IBD for Inuits compared with non-Inuits was 3.1. Alcohol intake appeared to be more frequent in patients than in the background population.

Conclusions: The pattern with high incidences of IBD, and most caused by pneumococci, ap-pear similar to that seen in Alaska. In particular incidence in the age group 35 to 65 years appear markedly higher than in Western countries.

Note. Abstracts are published in author's edition

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Last update: 06-Jul-2012 (11:52:05)