Weekly influenza surveillance overview, 1 March 2013, week 8

Surveillance report

1 March 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 8, 19 of 28 countries reporting indicated high/medium-intensity transmission and wide geographic spread. Only six countries reported increasing trends compared to eleven in week 7. Fifteen countries have been reporting decreasing or stable trends for at least two consecutive weeks.

Virological surveillance shows that the overall proportion of influenza-positive cases among sentinel specimens continues to remain high (50%), but it has decreased from the peak observed in early February.

Since week 40/2012, an even distribution of influenza virus types has been observed, 50% each for type A and type B viruses. After a sustained increase between weeks 02 and 07/2013, the proportion of A(H1)pdm09 has remained at around 60% of A viruses with subtyping information.

On the 8 February 2013, ECDC published its annual risk assessment for seasonal influenza 2012-13 based on data up to week 03/2013.

Publication file

influenza-weekly-surveillance-overview-01-mar-2013.pdf

English (1.94 MB - PDF)

Download