Official Statistics

National flu report summary: 14 February 2019 (week 7)

Updated 26 September 2019

Main points: data up to week 6, 2019

Data up to week 6 (ending 10 February 2019) shows:

• during week 6, influenza continued to circulate in the community with activity indicators at low intensity
• the impact of flu on healthcare services is at high impact for hospitalisations and ICU/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 from weekly national flu reports: 2018 to 2019 season.

Surveillance scheme summaries

Community

Data from outbreak surveillance shows:

• there have been 101 new acute respiratory outbreaks reported in the past 7 days
• 60 outbreaks were reported from care homes, where 21 tested positive for influenza A(not subtyped) 2 for RSV and 1 for hMPV
• 15 outbreaks were reported from hospitals, where 6 tested positive for influenza A(not subtyped), 1 for influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and 1 for seasonal coronavirus
• 19 outbreaks were reported from schools, where 3 were positive for influenza A(not subtyped) and 1 was positive for influenza A(H1N1)pdm09
• the remaining 7 outbreaks were reported from the other settings category, where 2 were positive for influenza A(not subtyped) and 1 was positive for influenza A(H1N1)pdm09

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 23.1 per 100,000 registered population in participating GP practices for England, this is a slight increase from 19.7 per 100,000 in week 5
• in the devolved administrations, ILI rates were at below baseline threshold levels for Northern Ireland and Scotland and were at medium intensity levels for Wales

Secondary care

Data from secondary care surveillance shows:

• hospitalisation rate observed was at high impact levels, with a rate of 6.75 per 100,000 trust catchment population for England (23 NHS Trusts), this is an increase from 6.05 per 100,000 in week 5
• ICU and HDU admission rate observed was at high impact levels, with a rate of 0.52 per 100,000 trust catchment population for England (140 out of 143 NHS Trusts), this is similar to 0.57 per 100,000 in week 5
• 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

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 6
• in the devolved administrations, no statistically significant excess all-cause mortality for all ages was observed in Wales and Northern Ireland in week 6 2019 and in Scotland in week 4 2019

Microbiological surveillance

Data from microbiological surveillance shows:

• in primary care 74 sample tested positive for influenza (47 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, 16 influenza A(H3) and 11 influenza A(not subtyped)) with a positivity of 56.1% through the UK GP sentinel swabbing schemes
• in secondary care influenza percent positivity was 31.0%, above baseline threshold levels, this is an increase from 26.3% in week 5
• a total of 891 detections were recorded through the DataMart scheme (402 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, 200 influenza A(H3), 284 influenza A(unknown subtype) and 5 influenza B)

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

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

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.