Good news at last ! According to the weekly epidemiological bulletin of Public Health France published this Wednesday, January 31, 2018, the flu epidemic of this winter 2017-2018 is much less deadly than that of the previous year.
Concretely, between the beginning of December 2017 and the beginning of January 2018, the influenza virus caused an excess mortality of 2,850 deaths against 14,400 additional deaths between December 2016 and January 2017.
Since the beginning of January 2018, the number of consultations, calls to SOS Doctors and emergency visits for “flu syndrome” has decreased, which probably heralds the end of the epidemic. Nevertheless, the flu epidemic remains declared throughout the territory, even if the activity of the virus is in decline in 6 metropolitan regions – Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Brittany, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Ile-de-France, Center -Val de Loire and Provence-Alpes Côte-d’Azur.
Influenza: an excess mortality which mainly concerns the over 65s
“In view of the provisional figures of excess mortality from all causes and deaths attributable to influenza observed at this stage of the epidemic, the excess mortality observed during this season should be lower than that of the previous season” estimates Public health France. Today, 90% of influenza-related deaths are in people aged 65 and over.
The 2017-2018 flu was still responsible for several spectacular deaths: we remember in particular little Kylian, 9 years old, who died of a cardiac arrest in the emergency room of the Lourdes hospital in January 2018. A few more days a 3-year-old girl was later killed in Aix-Les-Bains hospital in Savoie, probably due to the same virus.
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