Posted on Dec. 2020 at 17:37Updated 30 Dec. 2020 at 17:53
Fighting a virus means fighting them all: if the Covid-19 epidemic threatens to rebound in France, the flu has still not started precisely thanks to the barrier gestures adopted to counter the new disease, notes Wednesday the French public health agency.
“The impact of influenza still seems to be significantly reduced compared to previous years thanks to the adoption of barrier gestures,” notes the health agency on Twitter, publishing its weekly influenza surveillance bulletin.
[#Grippe] No active circulation of influenza viruses
➡️The impact of influenza still seems to be significantly reduced compared to previous years, thanks to the adoption of barrier gestureshttps://t.co/M6Q7qtujKd pic.twitter.com/zkmJjF8DAK– SantépubliqueFrance (@SantePubliqueFr) December 30, 2020
Since the start of surveillance at the end of September / beginning of October, there has been “no active circulation of influenza viruses” in mainland France, according to this bulletin .
No case in intensive care
In addition, over the same period, “no serious case of influenza was reported by the services participating in this surveillance”, no admission to intensive care having been recorded for this reason.
By way of comparison, last year, the flu had sent 61 patients to intensive care between early November and late December, including nine in the last week of December, the current one.
Influenza vaccination on the rise
In recent months, health authorities have frequently recalled that generalized barrier measures to combat the new coronavirus (hand washing, physical distancing, mask, etc.) were also useful against other winter viruses that cause influenza or gastroenteritis.
“In the current context, physical distancing and barrier gestures are essential to limit the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic and other viruses”, underlines Public Health France in its influenza bulletin.
In mid-December, the health agency indicated that influenza vaccination had jumped this year among people at risk. The authorities this year particularly encouraged the French to get vaccinated against the flu in order to avoid overcrowding the emergency services already faced with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Source AFP
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