Flu in Portugal with growing trend
The H3N2 flu virus is one of those circulating in Portugal, but a strain flagged in Brazil until November has not yet been flagged in Europe, according to the latest report available from the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention. At European level, H3N2 has been the predominant flu virus but there have been no warnings about inadequate vaccine protection, although in Croatia the type of AH3N2 detected is closer to the Darwin strain than that included in vaccines given this winter by here shows this latest ECDC report. In Portugal, in the last week evaluated by the INSA, this strain of the virus was not detected in any sample of patients who went through hospitals or places of care for respiratory patients in primary care, but in the previous ones it was.
The last flu season with the highest circulation of the flu virus H3N2 was 2016/2017, the year in which there was a higher mortality rate in hospitalized patients with flu, Carlos Robalo Cordeiro, pulmonologist at the Center said in an interview with Nascer do SOL in November University Hospital of Coimbra. It is estimated that a complaint annually causes 2,000 to 3,000 deaths, affecting 10% of the population, but comparisons with pandemic data become affected by data that there is no widespread testing for a complaint or real-time monitoring of admissions . Even so, some indicators allow us to know, by approximation, the different impact of the two diseases: in the worst years, it can be seen in the history of surveillance by the INSA, 150 to 200 people with flu were flagged over five months of the flu season in the intensive care units of the National Health Service, something that with a covid-19 was quite surpassed last winter and this same, in which since the second half of December there have been systematically hospitalized in intensive care close to 150 people with covid- 19, with no data on how many were discharged and died in this period, which will make the number of patients going through the ICU a higher number, a balance of admissions in the total that oi has already requested to the DGS and ACSS, with no response, no data on inpatients with respiratory problems in general were also provided. The turnout to emergencies due to respiratory problems remains however below pre-pandemic winters, indicates a monitoring platform by the Ministry of Health.
In terms of mortality, the last winter was the darkest on record in the last century: in the worst flu season in decades, 1998/1999, the INSA estimated an excess of 8,000 flu-associated deaths during the fall/winter season. In January and February of last year alone, nearly 10,000 deaths were associated with covid-19, with an excess of higher mortality and causes are not yet broken down, with days with more than 700 deaths in January when in the days with higher mortality in winter before the pandemic there were more than 400 deaths but it was rare to have more than 500 deaths in a day. In recent days, a daily average of about 360 deaths has been recorded in the country, with some days with higher than expected mortality in December, even with fewer deaths found at covid-19 than a year ago.