Faced with the influenza A epidemic, more than thirty French hospitals activated the Plan Blanc on January 9. Two weeks later this system is still in place but the epidemic is stable and the tensions of the first days are beginning to subside.
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It is a corollary of winter, the flu epidemic is established everywhere in France. It appeared in the run-up to the end-of-year holidays and has been worrying health professionals since the first week of January. It is also considered severe by health authorities and represents most of the activity on the viral fight front, since covid-19 and bronchiolitis are less active than in 2024.
In Center-Val de Loire, this epidemic outbreak required the launch of the Plan Blanc in several hospitals, from Tours to Orléans, via Vierzon, Châteauroux or Saint-Amand-Montrond.
The White Plan allows hospital management to take certain additional measures to deal with the health situation: the deprogramming of so-called “non-urgent” care, the transfer of patients, the mobilization of voluntary staff on rest, the implementation of a crisis unit and the addition of additional beds as needed.
Wherever it has been activated, this exceptional device is still effective.
-At the Vierzon hospital there are still a few beds available to cope with the influx of patients, however the tension is perceptible in the departments concerned. Staff have not yet seen any improvement despite the announcement by Santé Publique France of a peak in the epidemic before the end of January.
Conversely, the two large university hospitals in the region now have the situation well in hand.
In Orléans, the measures taken have made it possible to loosen the grip on caregivers. The necessary hospitalizations are carried out without too much difficulty. There are more beds available than at the start of the epidemic.
The only negative point concerns the rise of the influenza B epidemic, the Betainfluenzavirus, a well-known variant which has much less impact in terms of severity and hospitalization.
In Chartres, where the Plan Blanc was not used in favor of another system called “Hospital in tension”, we see a plateau effect on influenza A. There is stability in the number of visits to the emergency room, which seems to corroborate the imminent start of a decline in hospitalizations.
However, we note the persistence of pulmonary infections linked to the influenza epidemic.
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