Official Statistics

National flu report summary: 28 March 2019 (week 13)

Updated 26 September 2019

1. Main points: data up to week 12, 2019

Data up to week 12 (ending 24 March 2019) shows:

• during week 12, influenza continued to circulate in the community with activity indicators decreasing and below baseline
• the impact of flu on healthcare services is at low impact for hospitalisations and below baseline for ICU and HDU influenza admissions
• influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and influenza A(H3N2) are co-circulating
• 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 from weekly national flu reports: 2018 to 2019 season.

2. Surveillance scheme summaries

2.1 Community

Data from outbreak surveillance shows:

• there have been 40 new acute respiratory outbreaks reported in the past 7 days
• 29 outbreaks were reported from care homes where 8 tested positive for influenza A(not subtyped), 1 for influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, 1 co-infection of human metapneumovirus (hMPV), influenza A(not subtyped), influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and 1 co-infection of rhinovirus and parainfluenza
• 4 outbreaks were reported from hospitals where 3 tested positive for influenza A(not subtyped)
• 7 outbreaks were reported from schools where 1 tested positive for influenza A(not subtyped)

2.2 Primary care

Data from primary care surveillance shows:

• the rate of influenza-like illness (ILI) was below baseline threshold level
• the overall weekly ILI GP consultation rate was 7.2 per 100,000 registered population in participating GP practices for England, this is similar to the rate of 6.2 per 100,000 in week 11
• in the devolved administrations, ILI rates were below baseline threshold levels for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

2.3 Secondary care

Data from secondary care surveillance shows:

• hospitalisation rate observed was at low impact levels, with a rate of 1.18 per 100,000 trust catchment population for England (19 NHS Trusts), this is a decrease from 1.51 per 100,000 in week 11
• ICU and HDU admission rate observed was at below baseline impact levels, with a rate of 0.08 per 100,000 trust catchment population for England (138 out of 143 NHS Trusts), this is similar to the rate of 0.09 per 100,000 in week 11
• there were no new influenza admissions 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 12
• in the devolved administrations, no statistically significant excess all-cause mortality for all ages was observed in Wales and Northern Ireland in week 12 2019 and in Scotland in week 10 2019

2.5 Microbiological surveillance

Data from microbiological surveillance shows:

• in primary care 2 samples tested positive for influenza (1 influenza A(H3N2) and 1 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09) with a positivity of 7.7% through the UK GP sentinel swabbing schemes in week 12
• in secondary care influenza percent positivity was 10.9%, above baseline threshold levels, this is similar to the positivity of 11.9% in week 11
• a total of 231 detections were recorded through the DataMart scheme (13 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, 160 influenza A(H3), 53 influenza A(unknown subtype) and 5 influenza B)

2.6 Vaccination

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

• provisional data from the fourth monthly collection of influenza vaccine uptake in GP patients shows that in 99.6% of GP practices the proportions of people in England who had received the 2018 to 2019 influenza vaccine in targeted groups by 31 January 2019 were: 46.9% in under 65 years in a clinical risk group, 45.0% in pregnant women and 71.3% in those aged 65 years and over
• provisional data from the fourth monthly collection of influenza vaccine uptake in GP patients shows 99.4% of GP practices reporting for the childhood collection the proportions vaccinated by 31 January 2019 were: 43.1% in 2-year-olds and 45.2% in 3-year-olds
• provisional data from the fifth monthly collection of influenza vaccine uptake by frontline healthcare workers show 70.3% were vaccinated by 28 February 2019, compared to 68.7% vaccinated in the previous season by 28 February 2018
• provisional data from the fourth monthly collection of influenza vaccine uptake for children of school years reception to year 5 shows 63.9% in school year reception age, 63.4% in school year 1 age, 61.4% in school year 2 age, 60.2% in school year 3 age, 58.0% in school year 4 age and 56.2% in school year 5 age were vaccinated by 31 January 2019
• WHO have published their recommendations for the composition of the 2019 to 2020 Northern hemisphere influenza vaccine

3. International situation

• in the temperate zone of the Northern hemisphere, influenza activity continued to be reported with influenza A viruses predominating overall
• in the temperate zone of the Southern hemisphere, influenza activity remained at inter-seasonal levels, with the exception of some parts of Australia which remained above 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.