Introduction

One of the reflections of the influenza pandemic in 2009 is the priority of the early prescription of antivirals, preventing the unjustified use of antibiotics. Objective: To describe the symptomatology that is associated more with the definitive diagnosis of Influenza and to compare the performance of the clinical diagnosis against the diagnosis thrown by the rapid test.

Material and methods

A retrospective, cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study. All patients with presumptive diagnosis of Influenza admitted to the Emergency Service of the Hospital Español de Mexico were included in two consecutive seasons from October 2016 to March 2017 and October 2017 to March 2018. Two groups were formed of the included patients: patients with positive PCR (group A) and patients with negative PCR (group B).

Results

A total of 857 patients with presumptive clinical diagnosis of influenza were obtained, of whom 537 were confirmed with Influenza by PCR (group A) and 320 were negative for the test (group B). The syndrome consisting of cough, fever, rhinorrhea and arthralgia has a specificity of 92.2% compared to the rapid test of 99.1%.

Conclusions

The syndrome characterized by cough, fever, rhinorrhea, arthralgia present during winter months has a high specificity for an infection by the Influenza virus.