Like every winter, respiratory infections have made a place for themselves, sometimes even finding new impetus, during the end-of-year celebrations in France.
The flu epidemic thus intensified during Christmas week.
Faced with the influx of patients, several hospitals in France under pressure are reactivating their white plan at the start of the year.
France is struggling to breathe at the start of the school year. The first epidemiological bulletin for this year 2025 from Santé Publique France gives an overview. During the week ending December 29, acute respiratory infections were on the rise. “clear increase”both in hospitals and in community medicine, affecting people of all ages, according to the weekly bulletin published by the health agency on January 2. Hospitalizations “after visits to the emergency room” particularly concerned people aged 65 and over: they represented almost two thirds of hospitalizations for an acute respiratory infection, in the last week of 2024.
Faced with a large influx of patients, several hospitals in France have triggered their white plan in recent days, a crisis system which ensures the care of patients, as during the pandemic linked to Covid-19.
Viruses in circulation
The flu affects all regions of France and is intensifying “in all age groups” however reaching “very high level among those under 15”details Public Health France. Overseas, the flu epidemic is raging in Martinique, while Guadeloupe and Guyana are in the “pre-epidemic” phase.
The bronchiolitis epidemic continues in eleven regions of France but its intensity is decreasing for the second consecutive week, both in cities and in hospitals. The Antilles, Mayotte and Guyana are also in the epidemic phase. The bronchiolitis epidemic, however, arrives in Corsica and Reunion, which are both in the phase of “pre-epidemic”, while Ile-de-France is emerging from the epidemic.
Concerning Covid-19, the indicators remain “generally stable at low levels” compared to the previous week.
Triggering of serial white plans in hospitals
In this context, since December 31, many hospitals in France have announced that they are triggering the white plan to deal with the influx of patients linked to winter respiratory infections. This is particularly the case in Morbihanwhere the hospitals of Vannes, Ploërmel, and Noyal-Pontivy which reactivated the system this Saturday, January 4, faced with strong tension on their hospitalization capacities. In the Varthe Toulon – La Seyne intercommunal hospital center (CHITS) and the Hyères hospital center (CHH) have “activated their internal mobilization plan, i.e. level 1 of the white plan”they said in a joint press release, also reporting a deterioration of the situation. In the Sommethe Abbeville hospital center also had no other choice than to trigger its white plan this Sunday, evoking “a large influx of patients due to the increase in winter pathologies”. In Mayennewhere flu and bronchiolitis are progressing very quickly according to the latest data from Public Health France, the triggering of the white plan at Laval hospital was announced on Friday evening.
In Normandythe Lisieux hospital center announced on December 31 that it was placed under the so-called regime “hospital in tension” due to the flu epidemic raging in the Pays d’Auge. This leads to the opening of additional beds to accommodate patients in a temporary unit. The Dieppe hospital also went into “crisis management” mode thanks to the activation of the white plan on January 3, to deal with cases of bronchitis and bronchiolitis which are also significant in the region.
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In Burgundy-Franche-Comté where the seasonal flu epidemic has been raging since the beginning of December, the situation continued to deteriorate during the end-of-year holiday period, leading the Dijon hospital (Côte-d’Or) to impose the return of compulsory masks . As a benchmark, the establishment has recorded, over the last two weeks, no less than 250 hospitalizations of patients affected by a respiratory infection, reports France 3 Regions.
As a reminder, the white plan “may be triggered by the director or head of the establishment, who immediately informs the representative of the State in the department, or at the request of the latter”, can we read on the website of the Ministry of Labor, Health, Solidarity and Families. This implies, among other things, that hospital professionals, whether doctors, caregivers, technical or administrative staff, can be kept on site or called back into service, even if they are on leave or at rest.
