María Rivas

Mrs. María Rivas

Centro Nacional de Referencia de Influenza, Unidad de Virología, Departamento de Laboratorios de Salud Pública, Ministerio de Salud

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

7Years (2020-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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19 April 2020 in Microorganisms
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
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MRMaría Rivas
María Rivas
MAMiguel Alegretti
Miguel Alegretti
LCLeticia Cóppola
Leticia Cóppola
VRViviana Ramas
Viviana Ramas
HCHector Chiparelli
Hector Chiparelli
NGNatalia Goñi
Natalia Goñi
Influenza B viruses (IBV) are an important cause of morbidity and mortality during interpandemic periods in the human population. Two phylogenetically distinct IBV lineages, B/Yamagata and B/Victoria, co-circulate worldwide and they present challenges for vaccine strain selection. Until the present study, there was little information regarding the pattern of the circulating strains of IBV in Uruguay. A subset of positive influenza B samples from influenza-like illness (ILI) outpatients and severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) inpatients detected in sentinel hospitals in Uruguay during 2012–2019 were selected. The sequencing of the hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) genes showed substitutions at the amino acid level. Phylogenetic analysis reveals the co-circulation of both lineages in almost all seasonal epidemics in Uruguay, and allows recognizing a lineage-level vaccine mismatch in approximately one-third of the seasons studied. The epidemiological results show that the proportion of IBV found in ILI was significantly higher than the observed in SARI cases across different groups of age (9.7% ILI, 3.2% SARI) and patients between 5–14 years constituted the majority (33%) of all influenza B infection (p < 0.05). Interestingly, we found that individuals >25 years were particularly vulnerable to Yamagata lineage infections.