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Update on the Flu Outbreak

An update was provided during a press conference organized by the Minister of Health regarding the 2016-2017 flu epidemic. This epidemic began in week 49 of 2016 in Brittany and the Île-de-France region. It reached Bourgogne-Franche-Comté the following week (W50) before spreading across the entire mainland in week 51 and to Corsica in week 52. The epidemic therefore began quite early this year, with a significant number of flu cases around the turn of the year 2016–2017, which compounded the peak in bronchiolitis and gastroenteritis cases observed very regularly every year during this period. This led to a high volume of activity for healthcare professionals.An analysis of the percentage of flu cases in emergency department and SOS Médecins activity shows a slight decline in activity during the first week of January. Since the duration of the H3N2 epidemic was also short in 2014–2015, this could suggest that the peak of the epidemic has been reached. However, this decline can also be explained by two factors. On the one hand, patients of general practitioners who are on vacation are turning to emergency rooms and SOS Médecins, increasing their activity. On the other hand, school vacations tend to reduce the number of cases during the vacation period and the following week, as schools are a major site of transmission. This phenomenon led to a decline before the final peak during the 2015–2016 epidemic. It is therefore difficult to know whether the epidemiological peak has been reached or not. In any case, if it has not yet been surpassed, the peak should be near.The dominant virus is the A(H3N2) virus, which particularly affects the elderly, resulting in more hospitalizations, intensive care admissions, and flu-related deaths, as well as outbreaks of acute respiratory infections in nursing homes. These phenomena were observed during the winter of 2014–2015. We could therefore expect to see them again this winter. The rates of hospitalizations following visits to the emergency room are indeed high, as are the rates of intensive care admissions and the number of outbreaks of acute respiratory infections in nursing homes. As for deaths, the increase in deaths starting in the fall occurs every year, and there is always a lag between deaths and their reporting to INSEE. However, we can expect to see this trend.