Official Statistics

National flu report summary: 7 February 2019 (week 6)

Updated 26 September 2019

1. Main points: data up to week 5, 2019

Data up to week 5 (ending 3 February 2019) shows:

• during week 5, influenza continued to circulate in the community with activity indicators at low intensity
• the impact of flu on healthcare services is at medium impact for hospitalisations and ICU and HDU influenza admissions
• influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 is the dominant circulating subtype
• the Department of Health and Social Care has issued an alert on the prescription of antiviral medicines by GPs

The full weekly flu report this summary is based on, accompanying spreadsheet of data, and slideset are available as part of the weekly national flu reports: 2018 to 2019 season.

2. Surveillance scheme summaries

2.1 Community

Data from outbreak surveillance shows:

• there have been 73 new acute respiratory outbreaks reported in the past 7 days
• 41 outbreaks were reported from care homes, where 21 tested positive for influenza A(not subtyped) and 2 for RSV
• 8 outbreaks were reported from hospitals where 6 tested positive for influenza A (not subtyped)
• 21 outbreaks were reported from schools where 2 were positive for influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, and 2 were positive for influenza A (not subtyped)
• the remaining 3 outbreaks were reported from the other settings category, where one was positive for influenza A (not subtyped)

2.2 Primary care

Data from primary care surveillance shows:

• the rate of influenza-like illness (ILI) was at low intensity levels
• the overall weekly ILI GP consultation rate was 19.7 per 100,000 registered population in participating GP practices for England, this is a slight increase from 17.5 per 100,000 in week 4
• in the devolved administrations, ILI rates were at below baseline threshold levels for Northern Ireland and were at low intensity levels for Scotland, and medium intensity levels for Wales

2.3 Secondary care

Data from secondary care surveillance shows:

• the hospitalisation rate observed was at high impact levels, with a rate of 5.99 per 100,000 trust catchment population for England (22 NHS Trusts), this is similar to 5.92 per 100,000 in week 4
• ICU and HDU admission rate observed was at high impact levels, with a rate of 0.56 per 100,000 trust catchment population for England (135 out of 143 NHS Trusts), this is similar to 0.56 per 100,000 in week 4
• there were 6 new influenza admissions (5 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and 1 influenza A (unknown subtype) reported from the 6 severe respiratory failure centres in the UK

2.4 All-cause mortality

Data from all-cause mortality surveillance shows:

• no statistically significant excess all-cause mortality by week of death was seen overall and by age group in England in week 5
• in the devolved administrations, no statistically significant excess all-cause mortality for all ages was observed in Wales in week 5 2019 and in Scotland in week 3 2019 - data was unavailable for Northern Ireland at time of reporting

2.5 Microbiological surveillance

Data from microbiological surveillance shows:

• in primary care 56 sample tested positive for influenza (48 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, 5 influenza A(H3) and 3 influenza A (not subtyped) with a positivity of 50.5% through the UK GP sentinel swabbing schemes
• in secondary care influenza percent positivity was 25.6%, above baseline threshold levels, this is similar to 24.5% in week 4
• a total of 810 detections were recorded through the DataMart scheme (397 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, 144 influenza A(H3), 268 influenza A (unknown subtype) and one influenza B

2.6 Vaccination

Data from the GP patient, healthcare worker and primary school-age children flu vaccine uptake programmes shows:

• up to week 4 2018, in 97.4% of GP practices in England, the provisional proportion of people who had received the 2018 to 2019 influenza vaccine in targeted groups was 46.7% in under 65 years in a clinical risk group, 44.8% in pregnant women and 71.2% in those aged 65 years and over
• in 97.5% of GP practices reporting for the childhood collection the provisional proportion vaccinated was: 43.0% in 2-year-olds and 45.0% in 3-year-olds
• provisional data from the third monthly collection of influenza vaccine uptake by frontline healthcare workers show 65.8% were vaccinated by 31 December 2018, compared to 63.9% vaccinated in the previous season by 31 December 2017
• provisional data from the third monthly collection of influenza vaccine uptake for children of school years reception to year 5 shows 62.6% in school year reception age, 62.2% in school year 1 age, 60.3% in school year 2 age, 59.1% in school year 3 age, 56.9% in school year 4 age and 55.1% in school year 5 age were vaccinated by 31 December 2018

3. International situation

• in the temperate zone of the Northern hemisphere, influenza activity continued to increase with influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 predominating overall
• in the temperate zone of the Southern hemisphere, influenza activity returned to inter-seasonal levels
• worldwide, seasonal influenza subtype A viruses accounted for the majority of detections

4. Further information

See ‘seasonal influenza: guidance, data and analysis’ for further information on the symptoms, diagnosis, management, surveillance and epidemiology of seasonal influenza (flu).

See ‘sources of UK flu data: influenza surveillance in the UK’ for further information and guidance on the surveillance schemes we use to track seasonal influenza.