Increased incidence of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in Finland, 2010–2011

A Polkowska; A Harjunpää; S Toikkanen; M Lappalainen; R Vuento; T Vuorinen; J Kauppinen; H Flinck; O Lyytikäinen

doi:10.2807/ese.17.05.20072-en

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Increased incidence of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in Finland, 2010–2011
A Polkowska^1,2 , A Harjunpää¹ , S Toikkanen¹ , M Lappalainen³ , R Vuento⁴ , T Vuorinen⁵ , J Kauppinen⁶ , H Flinck⁷ , O Lyytikäinen¹
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Affiliations: ¹ National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Department of Infectious Disease Surveillance and Control, Helsinki, Finland ² European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET), Stockholm, Sweden ³ Helsinki University Hospital, Laboratory Services (HUSLAB), Department of Virology and Immunology, Helsinki, Finland ⁴ Fimlab Laboratories, Pirkanmaa Hospital District, Tampere, Finland ⁵ Department of Virology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland ⁶ Eastern Finland Laboratory Centre Joint Authority Enterprise (ISLAB), Kuopio, Finland ⁷ United Medix Laboratories Ltd, Espoo, Finland

Correspondence:
A Polkowska
aleksandra.polkowska thl.fi
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Citation style for this article: Polkowska A, Harjunpää A, Toikkanen S, Lappalainen M, Vuento R, Vuorinen T, Kauppinen J, Flinck H, Lyytikäinen O. Increased incidence of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in Finland, 2010–2011. Euro Surveill. 2012;17(5):pii=20072. https://doi.org/10.2807/ese.17.05.20072-en Received: 20 Jan 2012

Abstract

The number of cases of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection detected by laboratory-based surveillance increased in Finland in late 2010. During 2011, the number of cases was four times higher than during the previous epidemic in 2005. The 2011 epidemic affected mostly school-age children. The increased number of cases was probably not due to changes in laboratory procedures, but public interest may have had an effect, since the number of Google queries followed closely the epidemic curve.