Seasonal Influenza in Kosovo: An Epidemiological Analysis in the Municipality of Gjilan for the Period September–December at the Family Medicine Center “Nagip Rexhepi”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18519085Keywords:
seasonal influenza, influenza-like illness, epidemiology, primary healthcare, Kosovo, Gjilan, family medicine, outpatient careAbstract
Seasonal influenza is a common acute respiratory infection with a substantial impact on primary healthcare services worldwide. This study provides an epidemiological analysis of seasonal influenza in the Municipality of Gjilan, Kosovo, using routinely collected data from the Family Medicine Center “Nagip Rexhepi” for the period September–December 2023. A retrospective descriptive design was applied to the records of 240 patients diagnosed with seasonal influenza. Demographic variables, clinical manifestations, comorbidities, and temporal distribution were analyzed. The mean age of patients was distributed across all age groups, with 25.0% aged 0–14 years, 45.8% aged 15–49 years, 16.7% aged 50–64 years, and 12.5% aged 65 years or older. Females accounted for 54.2% of cases. The highest number of cases occurred in November (37.5%) and December (29.2%), confirming a clear seasonal peak in late autumn and early winter. The most frequent symptoms were fever (91.7%), cough (87.5%), sore throat (75.0%), fatigue (79.2%), myalgia (70.8%), and headache (66.7%). Comorbidities included hypertension (16.7%), diabetes (12.5%), chronic respiratory disease (10.4%), and cardiac disease (8.3%). Twelve patients (5.0%) were referred to secondary care, and eight cases (3.3%) were classified as severe. The findings highlight the important role of primary healthcare in the early detection, management, and surveillance of influenza and provide evidence to inform local prevention and vaccination strategies.
References
Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kosovo. (2023). Raporti vjetor i survejancës së gripit sezonal 2022–2023. Instituti Kombëtar i Shëndetit Publik të Kosovës (IKSHPK). https://www.ikshpk.rks-gov.net
National Institute of Public Health of Kosovo. (2022). Influenza weekly bulletin: Surveillance report for Kosovo. IKSHPK. https://www.niph-rks.org
National Institute of Public Health of Kosovo. (2021). Epidemiological bulletin of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI). IKSHPK. https://www.niph-rks.org
Institute of Public Health of Albania. (2022). Raporti vjetor i gripit sezonal në Shqipëri 2021–2022. ISHP. https://www.ishp.gov.al
Institute of Public Health of North Macedonia. (2023). Seasonal influenza report 2022–2023. IPH Skopje. http://iph.mk
Public Health Institute of Montenegro. (2022). Annual influenza surveillance report. Institute of Public Health of Montenegro. https://www.ijzcg.me
Croatian Institute of Public Health. (2022). Seasonal influenza epidemiological report for Croatia. Hrvatski zavod za javno zdravstvo. https://www.hzjz.hr
Serbian Institute of Public Health “Dr. Milan Jovanović Batut”. (2023). Influenza surveillance and weekly reports. https://www.batut.org.rs
Dora, C., et al. (2020). Epidemiological characteristics of influenza-like illness in the Western Balkans region. Balkan Journal of Public Health, 7(2), 45–53. https://doi.org/10.14712/bjph.2020.235
Hoxha, R., & Krasniqi, B. (2019). Seasonal influenza patterns in Kosovo: An analysis of surveillance data from primary healthcare centers. Albanian Medical Journal, 3(19), 85–94.
Gashi, M., & Berisha, M. (2021). Trends of influenza-like illness in Kosovo during winter seasons 2015–2020. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 103, 234–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.12.144
Berisha, M., Pllana, M., & Gashi, B. (2018). Influenza surveillance and virological confirmations in Kosovo: A five-year review. Kosovo Journal of Medical Sciences, 4(1), 12–20.
Kosovo Agency of Statistics. (2023). Health statistics report: Respiratory infections and influenza cases. KAS. https://ask.rks-gov.net
World Health Organization. (2023). Influenza (Seasonal). WHO. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/influenza-(seasonal)
World Health Organization. (2022). Global influenza strategy 2019–2030. WHO. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241515320
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023). Influenza symptoms & complications. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/symptoms.htm
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). Overview of influenza surveillance in the United States. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/overview.htm
Paget, J., Spreeuwenberg, P., Charu, V., Taylor, R. J., Iuliano, A. D., Bresee, J., Simonsen, L., & Viboud, C. (2019). Global mortality associated with seasonal influenza epidemics: New burden estimates and predictors from the GLaMOR project. Journal of Global Health, 9(2), 020421. https://doi.org/10.7189/jogh.09.020421
Iuliano, A. D., Roguski, K. M., Chang, H. H., Muscatello, D. J., Palekar, R., Tempia, S., Cohen, C., Schanzer, D., Cowling, B. J., Wu, P., & others. (2018). Estimates of global seasonal influenza–associated respiratory mortality: A modelling study. The Lancet, 391(10127), 1285–1300. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)33293-2
Caini, S., Kroneman, M., Wiegers, T., El Guerche-Séblain, C., & Paget, J. (2018). Clinical characteristics and severity of influenza infections: Results of the global Influenza Hospital Surveillance Network. PLOS ONE, 13(3), e0194516. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194516
Monto, A. S., & Fukuda, K. (2020). Epidemiology of seasonal influenza. Vaccine, 38(6), 1014–1021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.10.070
Krammer, F., Smith, G. J., Fouchier, R. A., Peiris, M., Kedzierska, K., Doherty, P. C., Palese, P., Shaw, M. L., Treanor, J., Webster, R. G., & others. (2018). Influenza. Nature Reviews Disease Primers, 4(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41572-018-0002-y
Wong, K. C., Luscombe, G. M., & Hawke, C. (2019). Influenza infections in primary care: A comparison of sentinel and general practice surveillance data in Australia. BMC Infectious Diseases, 19(1), 941. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-019-4591-2
Dawood, F. S., Hunt, D. R., Patel, M., De León, R. O., Komatsu, K. K., Tran, T., D’Mello, T., & others. (2020). Incidence of influenza in outpatient settings: A systematic review. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 70(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciz164
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. (2023). Seasonal influenza – Factsheet. ECDC. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/seasonal-influenza
Jain, S., Kamimoto, L., Bramley, A. M., Schmitz, A. M., Benoit, S. R., Louie, J., Sugerman, D. E., Druckenmiller, J. K., Ritger, K., Chugh, R., & others. (2011). Hospitalized patients with influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus infection—United States, April–June 2009. New England Journal of Medicine, 362(27), 2375–2385. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1000573
Rolfes, M. A., Foppa, I. M., Garg, S., Flannery, B., Brammer, L., Singleton, J., Burns, E., Jernigan, D. B., & Bresee, J. S. (2018). Annual estimates of the burden of seasonal influenza in the United States. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, 12(1), 132–137. https://doi.org/10.1111/irv.12486
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 flutura rexhepi
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All articles published in Ege Scholar Journal (ESJ) are open access and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This licence permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided that appropriate credit is given to the author(s) and the source, a link to the licence is provided, and any changes made are indicated.
The author(s) retain copyright for their work. As long as they meet the conditions of CC BY 4.0, users are free to download, read, copy, print, and redistribute the content without prior permission.
Third-party material included in an article (e.g., figures, tables, images) is covered by the same licence unless otherwise stated in the credit line. If material is not included under the article’s licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder.
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
