Epidemiology and ARIMA model of positive-rate of influenza viruses among children in Wuhan, China: A nine-year retrospective study

•This paper describes the epidemiology of influenza viruses among children in Wuhan, China during nine influenza seasons (2007–2015) and predicts the positive rate of different types of influenza virus in the future.•In contrast to previous research at home and abroad, this paper is the first study that explores the application of time series analysis using the positive rate of influenza virus in children to predict the future incidence.•The ARIMA model is a good instrument that forecasts the positive rate of different types of influenza virus.•The wide use of influenza vaccines, especially for influenza B(Yamagata) and B(Victoria), can potentially reduce the effects of influenza on the children of China. Influenza is a common childhood disease and protecting children by predicting the positive rate of influenza virus is important as vaccines are not routinely administered in China. Our study aims to describe the epidemiology of influenza viruses among children in Wuhan, China during the past nine influenza seasons (2007–2015) and to predict the positive rate of different types of influenza virus in the future. During the last nine influenza seasons (2007–2015), a total of 10,232 nasopharyngeal swabs collected from pediatric outpatients (age