Weekly influenza surveillance overview, February 15, 2013 - week 6

Surveillance report

15 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

Influenza activity continued to be substantial across Europe, concludes the Weekly Influenza Surveillance Overview, Week 6, 2013. At the same time, it has passed its peak in a few European countries in earlier weeks.

During week 6, twenty countries of the 28 countries reporting have indicated high/medium-intensity transmission and wide geographic spread of influenza activity. Thirteen countries have reported increasing trends and six reported decreasing trends, compared to 22 reporting increasing trends and only one decreasing in the previous week (week 5).

Virological surveillance shows that the proportion of influenza-positive cases among sentinel specimens continues to be high (53%) and is only slightly less than in week 5/2013 (55%).

Since week 40/2012, the proportions of influenza type A and B viruses have remained similar (51% vs. 49%). Among type A viruses, the percentage of A(H1)pdm09 has continued to increase to 65% as compared with 52% in week 2/2013.

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

influenza-weekly-surveillance-overview-15-feb-2013.pdf

English (1.88 MB - PDF)

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