Official Statistics

National flu report summary: 18 October 2018 (week 42)

Updated 26 September 2019

Main points: data up to week 41, 2018

Data up to week 41 (ending 14 October 2018) shows:

• there is no 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

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

Seventeen new acute respiratory outbreaks have been reported in the past 7 days. All outbreaks were reported from care homes where 1 tested positive for RSV and another tested negative for influenza A and B.

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 3.9 per 100,000 registered population in participating GP practices for England, a slight decrease from 4.2 per 100,000 in week 40
• in the devolved administrations, ILI rates were also below baseline thresholds

Secondary care

Data from secondary care surveillance shows:

• hospitalisation rate observed was below baseline threshold, with a rate of 0.08 per 100,000 trust catchment population for England (20 NHS Trusts), a slight increase from 0.04 per 100,000 in week 40
• the ICU and HDU admission rate observed was below baseline threshold, with a rate of 0.00 per 100,000 trust catchment population for England (132 out of 143 NHS Trusts), this is the same as 0.00 per 100,000 in week 40
• 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 no samples tested positive for influenza through the UK GP sentinel scheme
• in secondary care influenza percent positivity observed was 1.0%, below baseline threshold
• a total of 12 detections were recorded through the DataMart scheme (1 influenza (A(H1N1)pdm09, 3 influenza A(H3), 7 influenza A(unknown subtype) and 1 influenza B)
• RSV positivity was elevated amongst less than 5 year olds at 15.4%

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 17.6% in under 65 years in a clinical risk group, 19.9% in pregnant women and 28.4% in those aged 65 and over
• in 41.1% of GP practices reporting for the childhood collection the provisional proportion vaccinated was: 5.2% in 2 year olds and 5.8% in 3 year olds
• flu uptake data on 4 year olds will be collected through the school delivery programme and be published in the monthly report on 22 November 2018.

International situation

• in the temperate zone of the Southern hemisphere, appeared to decrease overall though influenza percent positivity remained elevated in Southern Africa
• in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere influenza activity remained at inter-seasonal levels
• 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.