One in seven people with symptoms respiratory infection addressed last week to his mobile medical teams EODI to check if they have been infected with a new coronavirusbecause he had flu, while nearly one in ten has been infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Although SARS-CoV-2 is still the main pathogen affecting the population at present, there has been a steady increase in influenza positivity in recent weeks, and the presence of RSV is also significant.

In the EODY Weekly Respiratory Infection Surveillance Report published yesterday, which contains data and indicators on the circulation of influenza virus, SARS-CoV-2 and RSV in our country, the Organization presents a new “tool” that addresses the molecular control of all three pathogens in patient samples. flu who voluntarily apply to COMMI EODY.

In this context, 970 samples of people with symptoms were taken for molecular testing last week as a result of community mass sampling activities and found that 26% of them were positive for SARS-CoV-2, 14% for influenza and 9 % for the virus. RSV. It is noted that this tool is mainly used to assess the trend of positivity in the community, since the sample is not made from a representative sample of the population.

So, over the past two weeks, the percentage of positive samples for coronavirus has decreased (from 35% to 26%), and the percentage of positive samples for influenza, on the contrary, has almost doubled (two weeks ago it was about 7.5%).

According to the report, there was a further increase in visits to the doctor for influenza patients last week (about 12% compared to 10% for the week of December 5-11). The increase was observed mainly among people aged 5 to 64 years, while in the very young and in people over 65 influenza cases stabilized.

Serious Incidents

As for the flu, there were four more serious cases last week that required hospitalization in the intensive care unit. These are three men and one woman from 60 to 81 years old. In total, since the outbreak of seasonal influenza began this year, 17 people have been hospitalized with influenza in the intensive care unit, while one patient has died. This is a 78-year-old woman with comorbidities. Until today, it seems that influenza type A (H3N2) predominates in our country.

The new report also includes the All-Cause Excess Mortality Index, which is operated by the European Public Health Monitoring Excess Mortality Program (Euro-MOMO), which involves 25 European countries. Basically, it estimates the difference between the observed number of deaths from each cause and the corresponding expected number, based on the average of the previous rates.

According to EODY, last week the excess mortality in our country was low, in contrast to countries such as Spain and Portugal, where the excess mortality is currently characterized as high.