Via Flu News Europe:
Week 01/2020 (30 December 2019-5 January 2020)
• One Member State reported high intensity activity for the first time this season and three reported medium intensity activity; however, the remainder reported baseline or low intensity levels.
• The percentage of sentinel ILI surveillance patients positive for influenza virus remains elevated, but has varied in the last three weeks, probably related to under-reporting during the Christmas/New Year period.
• The majority of reported influenza virus detections from sentinel ILI surveillance across the Region were type A (60%). This percentage has decreased each week from 78% in week 49 but varied between Member States and areas and within sub-regions.
• Influenzanet, which uses self-reported symptoms for ILI surveillance in the general population of European countries, is included in the bulletin for the first time this week as a pilot. For the last several weeks, activity has been moderate and is currently increasing in the majority of participating countries.
2019/20 season overview
• For the Region as a whole, influenza activity commenced earlier than previous years, increasing each week until week 51; since then it has remained elevated but variable.
• Influenza activity in the European Region, based on sentinel sampling, first exceeded a positivity rate of 10% in week 47/2019 and has remained over 10% for 7 weeks.
• Type A viruses have dominated across the European Region, although the proportion has been decreasing since week 49 and a number of countries have reported influenza type B virus dominance or co-dominance of types A and B viruses.
• In sentinel sources, both influenza A subtypes, A(H3N2) and A(H1N1)pdm09, are co-circulating and of the influenza B viruses, the vast majority (97%) have been B/Victoria lineage.
• ECDC and WHO Regional Office published a joint Regional Situation Assessment of the 2019–2020 influenza season up to week 49/2019, which focuses on disease severity and impact on healthcare systems to assist forward planning in Member States.
