The flu continues to gain momentum in France. The epidemic has reached a “high level of intensity in all age groups” during the second week of January, reported the Public Health France agency, Wednesday January 15, in its weekly monitoring bulletin. If the peak seems to have been reached in the emergency room, this is not the case for SOS Médecins, where almost a quarter of home consultations now concern this disease. The start of the year was especially marked by an explosion in mortality linked to this virus, which represents a proportion of deaths in France never reached since monitoring began in 2019. The epidemic now concerns the entire France, Corsica, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana. Here are three graphs that allow you to follow its evolution
The increase continues at SOS Médecins
During the week of January 6 to 12, SOS Médecins recorded 22,408 medical procedures for influenza-like illness, a total which represented 22.5% of all consultations carried out by doctors in its network (compared to 20.3 % the previous week). Public Health France sees this as a sign of “intensification of flu activity in the city”at levels which already make this winter the third most virulent in this regard over the last eight years, behind the peaks of January 2019 and especially December 2022.
In its bulletin, Public Health France specifies that the increase in indicators in community medicine during the week affects “all age groups, except for people aged 65 and over”. Children under 15 years old are the category in which the progression of the epidemic has been the strongest this week of the start of the school year.
A start of decline at the hospital?
In one week, patients admitted for influenza-like illness represented 4.3% of emergency admissions, a proportion down compared to the first week of the year (5.2%). In total, 14,651 passages were recorded, a significant drop of 20% in one week. The outbreak of cases since the end of December had led 87 hospitals in the territory to activate their “white plan”, according to a count from the Ministry of Health as of January 10.
-The share of hospitalizations linked to influenza also decreased (4.6%, compared to 5.4% a week earlier), while remaining “at a very high level of intensity in all age groups”insists Public Health France. The agency also warns of a significant increase in hospitalizations of children under 5 years old. However, people aged at least 65 remain the most exposed, to the point of representing two thirds of hospitalizations after a trip to the emergency room for the flu. Finally, according to preliminary data, 79% of patients admitted to intensive care with known vaccination status were not vaccinated against influenza.
Worrying mortality data
Public Health France reports a “strong increase” of the mortality indicator, now at “a level never reached for influenza since the implementation of this surveillance” of deaths by electronic certificate, in winter 2019-2020. In one week, 611 deaths caused or favored by the flu were declared by electronic certificate, i.e. 7.3% of all deaths recorded via this device, used by most hospitals, but still not widespread in community medicine. .
In more than nine out of ten cases, those who died from the flu were aged 65 and over. Regionally, the most affected territories during the week of January 6 to 12 are Burgundy-Franche-Comté (where 12.4% of certified deaths are linked to influenza), the Grand Est (9.4%) and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (9.2%).
