Flu increase in Portugal may lead to cases of ″ flurona ″
The Doctor Ricardo Jorge National Health Institute (INSA) has not registered cases of simultaneous infection by the viruses that cause the flu and Covid-19, but today admitted that these occurrences occur, given the predictable increase in flu activity.
“With the increased circulation of the flu virus and the continuation of the circulation of SARS-CoV-2, as the coins may be detected,” Raquel Guiomar, responsible for the national reference laboratory for the flu virus, told Lusa other respiratory viruses from INSA’s Department of Infectious Diseases.
“In Portugal it has not yet detected cases of infection by the influenza virus and by SARS-CoV-2. A survey of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza is being carried out in parallel in all the programs of the national influenza surveillance program and others respiratory viruses and no covid/influenza co-infections were detected,” added Raquel Guiomar.
On Sunday, Israel’s Ministry of Health confirmed to EFE news agency that the country’s first case of simultaneous infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and influenza virus, a co-infection that completes the designation “flurone” in a pregnant woman not vaccinated.
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“Flurone” is a designation defined from the terms ‘flu’ (flu) and ‘rona’ (from coronavirus).
The female female discharged on Dec. 30 after being treated for mild symptoms from this dual infection (flu and Covid-19), added the Times of Israel.
Cases of “flurone” were first detected in the United States during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Israeli Ministry of Health experts believe that there are similar cases, as yet unidentified, when nearly two thousand people are hospitalized for the flu and at the same time positive cases of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 are increasing in the country.
In Portugal, the latest INSA flu epidemiological surveillance bulletin, released on December 30, indicated that Portugal has a flu-like activity with an increasing trend, with an occurrence rate of 19.9 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Regarding the severity indicator, one case of influenza (influenza A) was reported by the 17 intensive care units that sent information, with no influenza situations being reported by the wards.
According to today’s data from the General Directorate of Health, more than 2.4 million people are already vaccinated against a complaint, including nearly 1.5 million elderly people aged 70 and over, who represent 88% of these age groups.
The risk analysis of the pandemic, released on Friday, indicated that the country has a very high intensity of epidemic coronavirus activity, with a growing trend at the national level, with a national incidence rate of 1,805.2 cases being registered today. of infection per 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days.
Covid-19 has caused 5,441,446 deaths worldwide since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest report by Agence France-Presse.
In Portugal, since March 2020, 19,000 people have died and 1,434,570 cases of infection have been recorded, according to data from the Directorate-General for Health today.
The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, detected in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in several countries.
A new variant, an Omicron, considered worrisome and highly contagious by the World Health Organization (WHO), has been detected in southern Africa, but since the South African health authorities raised the alert on 24 November, infections in hairs have been reported. less than 110 countries, being dominant in Portugal.