Whereas the coronavirus epidemic is picking up around the world, another disease continues to expand in France. The past week has been marked by a “sharp increase in all the indicators (of the) flu” in mainland France, summarizes this Wednesday Public Health France in its weekly report. The agency notes that now ” all metropolitan areas (are) in epidemicexcept Corsica ”.
This includes Île-de-France, which, hit early by the epidemic at the end of 2021, had experienced a lull at the start of the year and was no longer considered to be in the epidemic phase. She went back there this week. Outside mainland France, Guyana is also hit by the flu epidemic, but the other departments are spared.
The French less infected and less immune
This flight of the flu is unusually late. In recent years, the peak of the epidemic – measured by the consultation rate in relation to the number of inhabitants – took place in February. Winter 2020-2021 was however special, due to the containment measures taken once morest the Covid. They had, by extension, made it possible to block the circulation of many other microbes, such as the flu virus.
But the French, less infected than usual, are also less immunized collectively, which favored a resumption of the epidemic this winter. However, this remains below the levels observed in 2019-2020, just before the Covid, and especially 2018-2019 when the epidemic had been particularly strong.