Wave of Covid-19 ... and flu.
The flu epidemic is gaining ground in France, where one region is now in the epidemic phase and four others in the pre-epidemic phase, according to the weekly report from the French public health agency.
For the week of December 13, the health agency notes a "continued increase in influenza indicators".
During the previous week, no region in metropolitan France was in an epidemic phase.
Now, still in mainland France, the Occitanie region has entered an epidemic phase.
And four regions are in the pre-epidemic phase: Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Center-Val-de-Loire, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Ile-de-France.
In Overseas Territories, Réunion remains in the pre-epidemic phase and Mayotte in the epidemic phase.
A first region, Occitanie, is going into an epidemic phase for the # flu.
At the national level, the indicators are on the rise but they remain at the usual levels for this time of the year.
https://t.co/Fj3MtEmgkx pic.twitter.com/cbMYWamw9R
- Nicolas Berrod (@nicolasberrod) December 22, 2021
Last winter, confinements and anti-Covid barrier gestures helped block all viruses, including influenza.
The French have been less infected than usual and are therefore less immunized collectively, which raises fears of a stronger epidemic this year, as well as for other diseases such as gastroenteritis.
Bronchiolitis continues to spread
This has already been the case for several weeks with bronchiolitis, a disease that mainly affects babies. Common and highly contagious, it causes coughing and difficult, rapid, wheezing and wheezing. Most of the time benign, it may however require a visit to the emergency room, or even hospitalization. Since November, the bronchiolitis epidemic has hit all regions of metropolitan France, where it is currently continuing "at a high level" according to Public Health France. This is also the case in Guadeloupe. Mayotte has entered the epidemic phase with earlier circulation of the respiratory virus compared to previous years.
In metropolitan France, last week, 4,530 children under the age of two went to the emergency room for bronchiolitis, of which 91% were under the age of one and more than a third were hospitalized.
Of these 1,675 hospitalized children, more than nine in ten were under one year of age.