Bhat YR. Influenza B infections in children: A review. World J Clin Pediatr 2020; 9(3): 44-52 [PMID: 33442534 DOI: 10.5409/wjcp.v9.i3.44]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Yellanthoor Ramesh Bhat, MBBS, MD, Doctor, Full Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Madhava Nagar, Manipal, Udupi District, Karnataka 576104, India.docrameshbhat@yahoo.co.in
Research Domain of This Article
Pediatrics
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Pediatr. Nov 19, 2020; 9(3): 44-52 Published online Nov 19, 2020. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v9.i3.44
Influenza B infections in children: A review
Yellanthoor Ramesh Bhat
Yellanthoor Ramesh Bhat, Department of Pediatrics, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka 576104, India
Author contributions: Bhat YR conceptualized the review topic and wrote the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author(s) declare no conflicts of interest related to this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yellanthoor Ramesh Bhat, MBBS, MD, Doctor, Full Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Madhava Nagar, Manipal, Udupi District, Karnataka 576104, India.docrameshbhat@yahoo.co.in
Received: June 22, 2020 Peer-review started: June 22, 2020 First decision: August 9, 2020 Revised: August 31, 2020 Accepted: September 18, 2020 Article in press: September 18, 2020 Published online: November 19, 2020 Processing time: 135 Days and 14.5 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Influenza B (IFB) outbreaks occur worldwide and young children exposed to IFB tend to have a higher disease severity compared with adults. The IFB virus belongs to the Orthomyxoviridae family and has two distinct lineages; Victoria lineage and Yamagata lineage. The illness caused by IFB is less severe than that caused by influenza A. IFB illness is less studied in children although its impact is substantial. IFB mostly causes mild to moderate respiratory illness in healthy children. However, the involvement of other systems, a severe disease especially in children with chronic medical conditions and immunosuppression, and rarely mortality, has been reported. Early treatment with antiviral agents decreases the severity of illness and hospitalization. Due to the enormous health and economic impact of IFB, these strains are included in vaccines. In this review, the disease burden, clinical manifestations, treatment, prognosis, and prevention of IFB illness in children are discussed.
