2023-12-11 15:08:00
The flu is arriving from the east of France, and Covid indicators are progressing. RSV, the viruses that cause bronchiolitis in babies, also affect older people. “There is still time to get vaccinated,” advise health professionals.
“The doctor who provided visits this weekend was overwhelmed”: flu, Covid, “many viral syndromes”… at SOS Docteurs Montpellier, Dr Pierre Hubert Chaignon du Ronceray clearly saw the second weekend of December “switch” into winter pathologies, while temperatures remain abnormally mild.
“I hesitated to change the map of Occitania to “red”, perhaps it will be next week,” says emergency physician Hervé Mourou, at the Regional Emergency Observatory (Oru).
In Lunelois, it is a nursery which sees the warning lights come on: two-thirds of the children have now been affected by chickenpox.
Covid: “We no longer test systematically”
“Last year, at this time of year, we were already in a flu epidemic, and in the declining phase of brochiolitis, after strong hospital tension,” remembers Hervé Mourou. Fall-winter 2023 has another face, “no peak” but “a slow but continuous rise in epidemic indicators”, explains the emergency physician.
The map of hospital activity in the region, drawn from the flows managed by regulation, emergency admissions, and the number of beds available, testifies to a “very intense general activity in Occitanie”, a “high activity which is moving towards tension”, particularly under pressure from the elderly.
“It’s always the same problem this season” among those over 75: “Respiratory pathologies lead to decompensation of chronic pathologies, we have to find suitable medical beds”, explains Hervé Mourou, who recalls that a every second person in the age group who goes through the emergency room will have to be hospitalized.
Essentially, for the moment, under the effect of RSV, these respiratory viruses which are the most frequent cause of infections in infants (bronchiolitis) and which weaken fragile people.
If the flu epidemic “is not here yet”, it is arriving from the east of the territory, “we will not escape it, and that is what is worrying”, notes Hervé Mourou.
On the other hand, we are “right in the middle of Covid, with a very mutating virus”, but the situation is difficult to understand: “We no longer test systematically” because “we end up with the symptoms of other viruses. We is more attentive to cases of superinfection, sometimes with two viruses involved, influenza and Covid, which nevertheless require the patient to be put on antibiotics.
The unusual presence of mycoplasma bacteria
“I don’t have the impression that a majority of people have been vaccinated,” notes Hervé Mourou. 4.5 million for Covid, 4.9 million people for the flu, according to Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau, interviewed last week in Midi Libre.
“There is still time to get vaccinated while the Covid epidemic is restarting, and the flu epidemic will soon arrive in Occitanie”, pleaded this Monday, December 11 Hugues Aumaître, head of the infectious diseases department at Perpignan hospital, on France Bleu Roussillon, a quarter of the population at risk in the Pyrénées-Orientales has not protected themselves against the flu. To RSV, the infectious disease specialist adds the unusual presence, in the territory, of mycoplasma, a bacteria responsible for pneumonia.
“There is a small resurgence of Covid, a little flu, but for the moment, it is calm,” notes Dr Marc Ferrand, at La Cavalerie (Aveyron).
For his part, Pierre Hubert Chaignon du Ronceray has already taken stock of a tense weekend: he pleads for the opening of an additional position at SOS doctor, next weekend, at the permanence guaranteed in the The grounds of the Parc clinic, in Castelnau-le-Lez, on the outskirts of Montpellier.
Public Health France: “Let everyone continue to adopt barrier gestures”
According to the latest Public Health France bulletin, published on December 6, the whole of France is in “red” for bronchiolitis. The flu is indeed arriving from the east, and the indicators are increasing.
“In view of family gatherings for the end of year holidays, it is essential that people at risk protect themselves by vaccinating against seasonal flu and Covid-19 and that everyone continues to adopt the barrier gestures”, insists Public Health France.
For bronchiolitis, “the trend is towards the stabilization of the indicators”.
Concerning Covid, the indicators are trembling, and above all, “a strong increase, + 24%, in the detection of Sars-Cov2 in wastewater is observed”.
As for indicators of flu/flu-like illness, they “are increasing in community medicine and concern all age groups”.
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