Health: are we sick more often than before?

On June 14, the Bloomberg press agency published an article with an evocative title: “Yes, everyone is really sick much more often than before Covid”. The text thus states that “at least 13 communicable diseases, from the common cold to measles to tuberculosis, are exceeding their pre-pandemic levels in many regions, and often by significant margins”. The analysis of the American media is based on a study carried out jointly with the company Airfinity Ltdbased in London and specializing in disease forecasting.

This research – for which data was collected from more than 60 public health organizations and agencies – shows that 44 countries and territories have reported “at least one resurgence of infectious disease ten times more severe than the baseline situation before the pandemic », Explains Bloomberg again.

At CHUV, we are also observing such resurgences. We even study them. “There are at the moment, at least to my knowledge, no robust publications on this question, but we are currently working on this subject, our study has not yet been published,” indicates Gilbert Greub, infectious disease specialist and head of the microbiology department of the university hospital. “We worked on the agents transmitted during respiratory infection (bacteria, parasites and viruses), with data collected in Lausanne between 2013 and 2023.”

The data makes it possible to visualize different epidemics of infectious diseases. Like the annual resurgences of influenza A between 2013 and 2019. “We see that in 2020, influenza A is rife, like every year, in January and February, but then it disappears, thanks to confinement, until December 2021 , where it reappears,” supports Gilbert Greub. The return of most other respiratory infections is also observed after the confinement break, as is the case for example for the respiratory syncytial virus which frequently affects infants and young children.

Collective immunity problem

What is happening now – and which makes Bloomberg say, rightly, that we are sick more often than before Covid – is due to the fact that we are in a phase of reconstituting the collective immunity partially lost during the confinement.

“This is why we are currently experiencing repeated waves of infections by various microbes,” summarizes Gilbert Greub. But we must not forget that health measures, confinement, were necessary to limit coronavirus contamination in 2020 and reduce pressure on hospitals. The Covid virus, at the start of the pandemic, was very dangerous, it caused many deaths, not only among elderly populations but also among young and healthy people. However, if confinement made it possible to avoid a certain number of contaminations, it also suspended the circulation in the population of a certain number of other viruses and bacteria. But it is through exposure to microbes that collective immunity is established.”

How long will it take for herd immunity around major viruses and microbes to build back up? “I would say that in 2023 and 2024, infectious agents have circulated quite a bit,” estimates Gilbert Greub, without putting forward a date for a return to the pre-pandemic situation. Next winter should also help strengthen everyone’s antibodies.”

Pediatric infections in adults

Do primary care doctors also notice that the lines are moving? “As noted in the Bloomberg article, this is the first time in the era of modern medicine that we are in the wake of a pandemic. It is therefore difficult to have points of comparison, warns the D^D Myriam Ingle, co-president of the Vaud Association of Family Physicians. At my level, I do not see a strong increase in the number of consultations this season compared to previous years, including pre-pandemic. There are things that change, we saw it with the resurgence of bronchiolitis and other pulmonary infections caused by atypical germs which overwhelmed the emergency room pediatrics over the last two winters, but it’s very difficult to analyze.”

Two reasons for this, according to the specialist: we lack perspective and the developments are multifactorial. “Containment has changed the situation in terms of immunity and our susceptibility to diseases has evolved, but the scientific consolidation of these first evaluations requires time. The Covid pandemic has created a new distribution of germs incriminated in current respiratory infections, with pediatric infections found in adults and vice versa, and germs less present in the pre-pandemic years returning to the forefront , but it would be a hasty conclusion to attribute sole responsibility to this pandemic.”

The University Hospitals of Geneva refer to the Federal Office of Health (OFSP). Who also remains cautious. While it confirms that “the number of cases of many diseases is increasing and is currently at a pre-pandemic level”, the FOPH “has no indication that the number of cases will exceed an unexpected level”.

The reasons which can explain an increased circulation of viruses are multiple and “vary a lot from one disease to another”. Among them, the OFSP cites the resumption of mobility and travel after the restrictions caused by the pandemic.

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