The flu epidemic has spread in recent days in France, and in particular in the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region. The last few days have been marked by a jump in contaminations and a “very sharp increase in hospitalizations, particularly among people aged 65 and over”, underlines Public Health France.
The flu epidemic has spread in recent days in France while that of bronchiolitis, mainly affecting babies, has remained at a particularly high level, announced the health authorities, in a context also marked by a resurgence of Covid.
The flu epidemic, which broke out at the end of November in mainland France, has won more than half of it with “nine regions in the epidemic phase”, according to the weekly report from Public Health France.
The Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region is now concerned with Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Brittany, Centre-Val de Loire, Grand Est, Île-de-France, Hauts-de-France, Normandy, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and, overseas, Martinique, Mayotte and Réunion.
The last few days have been marked by a jump in contaminations and a “very sharp increase in hospitalizations, particularly among people aged 65 and over”, underlines Public Health France.
The outbreak of the influenza epidemic, rather early this year, comes to test a health system tested by the recurrent waves of Covid, currently in full recovery, and, in babies, an epidemic of bronchiolitis unprecedented since ten years.
The bronchiolitis epidemic continued last week with a persistent rise in hospitalizations, according to weekly figures from Public Health France.
The peak, despite the hopes of some paediatricians, has therefore not yet been reached even if the progression of hospitalizations is slowing down markedly and gives hope for a plateau in the near future.
For the time being, at nearly 3,000 weekly hospitalizations in mainland France, their level remains “very high”, specifies the health agency, which nevertheless notices a beginning of a decline in the epidemic in certain regions, such as the Island of -France.
In this context of a triple epidemic, the health agency reiterated its calls for vaccination, while the campaigns launched in the fall are for the time being too little followed, whether for the flu or the reminders of Covid.
These campaigns target people at risk, especially the elderly, the threshold being set at 60 for Covid and 65 for the flu and pregnant women.
With AFP.