Epidemiological analysis of acute respiratory diseases (ARD) of viral etiology in the Czech Socialist Republic (CSR] and German Democratic Republic (GDR) over the period 1979 to 1984

An analysis is made of the ARD reported in CSR and the GDR over the period July 1st, 1979 to June 30th, 1984. During that time, there were 27,810,000 cases reported in CSR in the framework of ARD epidemiological surveillance, representing 2.67 cases per one inhabitant, whereas in the GDR, the total number of reported ARD was 28,900,000 yielding 1.73 cases per person. However, the GDR reported higher morbidity per one child of preschool age. The authors believe that the differences in the reported incidence of ARD between the two countries are due to differences in the reporting systems and medical officers' activity during an epidemic and in the interim period. Approximately one third of ARD reported annually in the two countries falls to the period of influenza epidemics. The authors also analyze the etiology of the influenza epidemics which affected the two countries in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984. In most seasons, the causative agents and morbidity excesses were different in the two countries. The drift variant B/USSR/100/83, which caused a major epidemy in CSR in 1984, has not to date been implicated in the DGR in the etiology of ARD. The cyclic epidemic due to Mycoplasma pneumoniae occurred in the GDR already in 1979-80, while CSR experienced it a year later. There was a temporal and territorial correlation between the course of A(H1N1) influenza epidemic in the two countries in 1984.