Official Statistics

National flu report summary: 11 October 2018 (week 41)

Updated 26 September 2019

Main points: data up to week 40, 2018

Data up to week 40 (ending 07 October 2018) shows:

• there is no longer widespread influenza circulating in the community, with all indicators below baseline threshold levels
• the impact on the healthcare services is below baseline threshold levels for hospitalisations and ICU and HDU admissions
• early signs indicate that RSV activity has started to circulate

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.

Surveillance scheme summaries

Community

Twenty one new acute respiratory outbreaks have been reported in the past 7 days. Twenty out of the 21 outbreaks were reported from care homes where 3 tested positive for rhinovirus and 1 positive for parainfluenza. The remaining outbreak was reported from a school with no test results available.

Primary care

Data from primary care surveillance shows:

• the rate of influenza-like illness (ILI) was below baseline threshold
• the overall weekly ILI GP consultation rate was 4.2 per 100,000 in week 40
• in the devolved administrations, ILI rate were also below baseline thresholds

Secondary care

Data from secondary care surveillance shows:

• hospitalisation rate observed was below baseline threshold, with a rate of 0.01 per 100,000 for England
• the ICU and HDU admission rate observed was below baseline threshold, with a rate of 0.00 per 100,000 for England
• there were no new influenza admissions reported from the 6 severe respiratory failure centres in the UK

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 the devolved administrations, no statistically significant excess all-cause mortality for all ages was observed in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Microbiological surveillance

Data from microbiological surveillance shows:

• in primary care 1 sample tested positive for influenza (1 influenza B) through the UK GP sentinel scheme
• in secondary care influenza percent positivity observed was below baseline threshold
• a total of 8 detections were recorded through the DataMart scheme (2 influenza A(H3), 4 influenza A(unknown subtype), and 2 influenza B) with a positivity of 0.6%
• RSV positivity amongst the under 5 year olds is elevated at 9.4%

Vaccination

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

• up to week 40 2018, in 41.1% of GP practices in England, the provisional proportion of people who had received the 2018 to 2019 influenza vaccine in targeted groups was 48.7%12.5% in under 65 years in a clinical risk group, 13.9% in pregnant women and 21.8% in those aged 65 and over
• in 41.1% of GP practices reporting for the childhood collection the provisional proportion vaccinated was 1.8% in 2 year olds and 2.1% in 3 year olds

The World Health Organization (WHO) have also published their recommendations for the composition of the 2018 to 2019 northern hemisphere influenza vaccine.

International situation

• in the temperate zone of the Southern hemisphere, influenza activity remained elevated in South America and continued to decrease in Southern Africa.
• influenza activity remained at low seasonal levels in Australia and New Zealand
• in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere influenza activity was at inter-seasonal levels
• decreased influenza activity was reported in most countries of tropical America
• worldwide, seasonal influenza subtype A viruses accounted for the majority of detections

Further information

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.

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.