Via Flu News Europe, an excerpt from the week 2 update:
Week 02/2020 (6-12 January 2020)
• Activity increased compared to week 01/2020, particularly in the southern part of the Region, with two Member States reporting high intensity and six reporting medium intensity. The remainder reported baseline or low intensity levels.
• The percentage of samples from sentinel ILI surveillance patients that tested positive for influenza virus increased from 27% in the previous week to 40% this week.
• The majority of reported influenza virus detections from sentinel ILI surveillance across the Region for week 02/2020 were type A (67%): this percentage has decreased from a high of 78% in week 49. The distribution of viruses detected varied between Member States and areas and within sub-regions.
• Data from the 22 countries or regions reporting to the EuroMOMO project indicated that all-cause mortality was at expected levels for this time of the year.
• ECDC published an Influenza virus characterization report, summarizing surveillance data in Europe through December 2019
2019/20 season overview
• For the Region as a whole, influenza activity commenced earlier than previous years.
• 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 8 weeks. There has been an overall increasing trend in the weekly positivity rate for influenza virus detections among sentinel ILI surveillance patients, following a dip in week 52.
• Type A viruses have dominated across the European Region, though several Member States and areas 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 (98%) have been B/Victoria lineage.
• Influenzanet, which uses self-reported symptoms for ILI surveillance in the general population of European countries, is included in the bulletin as a pilot for the 2019/2020 season.
• ECDC and WHO Regional Office published a joint Regional Situation Assessment for the 2019–2020 influenza season up to week 49/2019, which focused on disease severity and impact on healthcare systems to assist forward planning in Member States.
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