Weekly influenza overview, February 22, 2013 - Week 7

Surveillance report

22 February 2013

The weekly/bi-weekly influenza surveillance overview is a collection of timely and relevant information regarding influenza activity in Europe. It provides key statistical data on a variety of issues including the following: sentinel surveillance of influenza-like illness and acute respiratory illness; virological surveillance; hospitalised laboratory-confirmed influenza cases; mortality surveillance and qualitative reporting. An up-to-date report is available on Fridays.

Executive Summary

During week 7, 19 of the 29 countries reporting indicated high/medium-intensity transmission and wide geographic spread of influenza. Eleven countries reported increasing trends, and ten countries reported decreasing trends, compared to thirteen countries reporting increasing trends and six reporting decreasing trends in the previous week (week 6).

Virological surveillance shows that the proportion of influenza-positive cases among sentinel specimens continues to be high (52%) but continued to decrease, as first observed in the previous week.

Since week 40/2012, an even distribution of influenza virus types has been observed, 50% each for type A and type B viruses. Among influenza A viruses, an increasing proportion of A(H1)pdm09 over A(H3) has been reported since week 52/2012.

On 8 February 2013, ECDC published its annual risk assessment for seasonal influenza 2012-2013 based on data up to week 03/2013.

Publication file

130222_SUR_Weekly_Influenza_Surveillance_Overveiw.pdf

English (1.17 MB - PDF)

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