Yasmina Kattou
modified to
07:22, December 19, 2022
To the epidemics of bronchiolitis and Covid is added that of influenza. In one week, emergency room admissions jumped 93%. All of France and age groups are affected, to such an extent that some hospitals are close to saturation. A situation that worries health professionals.
Covid, bronchiolitis and now the flu. Red alert in all departments where hospitals are approaching saturation. In one week, emergency room admissions jumped 93%. An infection that can be serious to the point of staying in the hospital.
All departments and all age groups affected
The number of hospitalizations for flu following a visit to the emergency room increased by 117% in one week. In 15 days, 34 people were admitted to intensive care. In detail, more than half of the patients were over 65 years old. Twenty patients were between 15 and 64 years old. The flu now affects all departments and all age groups. And this year, the epidemic started very early.
“We are in an exceptional situation because of this precocity of the influenza epidemic. We have not seen such a situation since 2009”, explains Sibylle Bernard-Stoecklin, epidemiologist at Public Health France. “According to our historical data, from when the flu epidemic starts to when it reaches its peak, it takes five weeks. It is to be expected that the upward trend of the epidemic of flu will continue at least until the end of the year holidays.”
With the epidemic of Covid and bronchiolitis in parallel, the epidemiologist fears a saturation of hospitals and calls on the most fragile to be vaccines as quickly as possible.
