Review of Virus Respiratory Infections in the Milwaukee Area, 1955-65
Year: 1969
Type: article
Abstract: ALTHOUGH progress continues to be made in our knowledge and understanding of respiratory viruses, these infections still are a major cause of acute infectious diseases today (1-3).A niumber of excellent surveillance stud- ies have been undertaken in recent years in an attempt to establish the role various viruses play in respiratory infections (4-7).The results of these studies, however, indicate that the incidence of viruses, as a cause of respiratory infec- tions, can vary from 34 to 75 percent of the total cases.These results also indicate that the significance of particular viral agents varies with the particular ecologic environment and the popu- lation studied.Although a systematic surveillance study is essential to establish the true incidence of respiratory viruses in a given locality, attempts to set up such a study in large communities have proved impractical and present many unsur- mountable difficulties.Nevertheless, an evalua- tion of the laboratory findings of a diagnostic program, for virus diseases in a large community such as Milwaukee provides a valuable insight into the viral agents causing major outbreaks of acute respiratory infections.Most of the pa-
DOI: 10.2307/4593533
Authors: Henry J. Wisniewski, Frank F. Piraino
Institution: Milwaukee Health Department
Language: English
Subfield: Epidemiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W31067428