Influenza activity is low in Greece and Europe – What will happen after the relaxation of the measures
Despite the fact that epidemiologists were expecting a strong flu wave this winter that would hit Greece and Europe, the seasonal flu activity in our country remains low, which is quite encouraging.
And this because a wave of seasonal flulike a combination of flu and COVID, it would be explosive cocktail for already overburdened hospitals but also for public health. Of course the fact that we continue to wear masks and observe to some extent the meters social distancing, according to scientists, helps to avoid cases of influenza. But also the flu vaccinationhelps significantly in protecting against the seasonal flu virus.
Remember, that last year all winter We also did not have cases of influenza, a fact that was attributed as we said above to both the health measures due to COVID-19 and the lockdown, but also to the flu vaccination, as last winter the pharmacies had provided about 4.2 million flu vaccines .
650,000 deaths worldwide from influenza
Note that the seasonal flu virus causes death in approx 650,000 people a yearaccording to EU data.
The epidemiological report of EODY of February 1, 2022, records two positive types of type A. In particular, from week 40/2021 to week 3/2022 a total of 284 clinical samples have been tested, namely 62 from hospitals and 222 from the Sentinel networks. 2 (0.7%) of them were positive for type A influenza A. The 2 type A strains were subtyped and belonged to subtype A (H3N2).
The pursuit of influenza for the period 2021 – 2022 at European level and in Greece began in week 40/2021 (04–10 October 2021) and ended in week 20/2022 (16–22 May 2022).
According to his report ΕΟΔΥDuring the week 3/2022 (ie 17 to 23 January 2022) the number of participating physicians who submitted clinical data reached 46 and the visits for each cause corresponding to the physicians who declared, amounted to 2,750 in the whole country.
From week 40/2021 to week 3/2022, in Greece no serious case of laboratory-confirmed influenza was recorded with or without hospitalization in ICU. From week 40/2021 to week 3/2022, in Greece no deaths from laboratory confirmed flu were recorded in the whole country.
During the week 2/2022 (10-16 January 2022), influenza activity in Europe remains at a low level as reported by 19 member countries of the surveillance network in the total of 38 countries that declared.
Of course, as the president of the National Vaccination Committee, Maria Theodoridou, emeritus professor of Pediatrics, has pointed out, the coronavirus is next to us in our yard, and we should not allow it to give birth to any mutations.
What we will have to see in the next period, however, is whether influenza activity remains low, as European countries are gradually moving towards relaxation of measures against coronavirus. And certainly the months of February and March are winter and they are not joking.