In Scotland, following the two waves of infection that have occurred so far, it appears that older people are no longer more likely to have significant levels of antibodies than young people. The seroprevalence among young people is, presumably, primarily due to exposure during the two waves of infection. While we currently do not have seroprevalence data for individuals aged under 20 years, the results presented here would suggest that during the 2010-11 influenza season, the burden of infection among adults in Scotland might be similar across age groups, with levels of infection among young adults more in line with those seen in older age groups during 2009.
A weakness of this study is that we do not have any information on the risk group and vaccination status of the patients as only aggregate data, which did not link to any patient characteristics, could be used. This means we are unable to separate out the effect of vaccination from infection or to adjust seroprevalence among the hospital samples for possible selection bias associated with risk groups.
The results presented here will have implications for public health policy in Scotland. Planning for the 2010-11 influenza season should include strategies to target risk groups as a significant proportion of the population remain susceptible to the virus.
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