An excerpt from Flu News Europe:
Week 45/2017 (6-12 November 2017)
• Influenza activity across Europe remained at a low level.
• Overall, 4.5% of individuals sampled, on presenting with ILI or ARI to sentinel primary healthcare sites, tested positive for influenza viruses, which is a slight increase compared to the previous week (1%).
• Data from 19 countries or regions reporting to the EuroMOMO project indicated that all-cause mortality was at low levels, as expected for this time of the year.
• Additional information on global influenza activity is available from WHO’s biweekly global updates.
2017/18 season overview
• Since week 40/2017, few influenza viruses have been detected in sentinel and non-sentinel specimens.
• For detections from both sentinel and non-sentinel surveillance systems, most viruses subtyped or assigned to a lineage this season were identified as A(H3N2) and B/Yamagata viruses, respectively.
• While low in number (n=21), over 80% of the A(H3N2) viruses genetically characterized belong to clade 3C.2a, the vaccine virus clade, as described in the WHO recommendations for vaccine composition for the northern hemisphere 2017–18.
