Fever, headache, cough, and irritated throat… Health authorities fear a more severe seasonal flu epidemic this winter. The flu epidemic in Australia, where the flu is already circulating, before reaching the northern hemisphere, suggests a resurgence of the virus. The country has indeed just had its worst flu season in at least five years, according to NBCNews .
Read also: REPORTAGE. Behind the scenes of the flu vaccine
Lower immunity
The flu affects 2 to 8 million people in France each year, “with an excess of mortality attributable to the flu, from 10,000 to 15,000 deaths, mainly in fragile subjects”, remember the Pasteur Institute.
The authorities fear an increased severity of the flu in France and underline the current low vaccination coverage.
“There have been very few vaccinations in previous years. So immunity tends to drop in the general population,” reports epidemiologist Jean-Daniel Lelièvre, head of the infectious diseases department at Henri-Mondor Hospital on France info .
Read also: MAINTENANCE. Covid-19: “The rhythm of the waves does not decrease, it accelerates”
The French less attentive to barrier measures
The epidemiologist also deplores a relaxation of barrier measures at the end of the Covid-19 crisis, although that the epidemic has started to rise once more in recent weeks.
“We use the mask much less, we pay less attention. And then, if we look a little at what is happening in the southern hemisphere, we see that the forms are more severe,” he further adds.
A finding shared by immunology professor Alain Fischer. “There is a serious risk of an influenza epidemic,” he judges in a recent interview with Parisian. According to him, the flu has “keep a distance” for two years, thanks to the barrier measures put in place once morest Covid-19, but he fears that this year, the same level of protection (masks, distancing, intensive hand washing, etc.) will not be maintained.
The importance of vaccination
In a interview at West France the new Minister of Health François Braun called on the fragile population to be vaccinated, stressing the possibility of simultaneously receiving a dose once morest the flu and the Covid. “I really appeal to the elderly, or to people at risk of the disease: it is important to get vaccinated”.
Monday, the vaccination campaign for the additional booster dose once morest Covid-19 has started, for so-called “at-risk” populations, integrating new bivalent vaccines, adapted to Omicron sub-variants.
