Official Statistics

National flu report summary: 5 December 2019 (week 49)

Updated 1 October 2020

1. Main points: data up to week 48, 2019

Data up to week 48 (ending 1 December 2019) shows:

• during week 48, influenza activity has continued to increase for several indicators
• the impact of flu on healthcare services is at moderate intensity levels for hospitalisations and above baseline for ICU/HDU influenza admissions
• the Department of Health and Social Care has issued an alert on the prescription of antiviral medicines by GPs
• respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) continues to circulate in the <5 year olds in England

The full weekly flu report this summary is based on, accompanying spreadsheet of data and slideset are available from weekly national flu reports: 2019 to 2020 season.

2. Surveillance scheme summaries

2.1 Community

Data from outbreak surveillance shows:

• there have been 157 new acute respiratory outbreaks reported in the past 7 days
• 34 outbreaks were reported from care homes where 19 tested positive for influenza A(unknown subtype)
• 5 outbreaks were reported from hospitals where one tested positive for influenza A(unknown subtype) and another for influenza A(H1N1)pdm09
• 108 outbreaks were reported from schools where 16 tested positive for influenza A(unknown subtype) and one for influenza A(H3N2)
• the remaining 10 outbreaks were reported from the Other settings category where one tested positive for influenza A(H1N1)pdm09

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 10.6 per 100,000 in week 48 compared to 6.5 per 100,000 registered population in the previous week in participating GP practices for England
• in the devolved administrations, ILI rates were below baseline threshold levels for Scotland and Wales, however at moderate impact levels in Northern Ireland

2.3 Secondary care

Data from secondary care surveillance shows:

• hospitalisation rate observed were moderate intensity levels, with a rate of 4.31 per 100,000 in week 48 compared to 2.85 per 100,000 trust catchment population in the previous week, for England (18 NHS Trusts)
• ICU and HDU admission rate observed are above baseline levels, with a rate of 0.15 per 100,000 in week 48 compared to 0.08 per 100,000 trust catchment population in the previous week, for England (139 out of 143 NHS Trusts)
• there was one influenza admission (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 48
• in the devolved administrations, no statistically significant excess all-cause mortality for all ages was observed in Wales in week 48, however excess was noted for Scotland in week 46 2019 *no data was available for Northern Ireland in week 48

2.5 Microbiological surveillance

Data from microbiological surveillance shows:

• in primary care, 588 samples tested positive for influenza (1 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, 45 influenza A(H3) and 12 influenza A(unknown subtype)) through the UK GP sentinel swabbing schemes in week 48, with an overall positivity of 50.9%
• a total of 376 detections were recorded through the DataMart scheme (15 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, 277 influenza A(H3), 77 influenza A(not subtyped) and 7 influenza B) with an overall positivity of 17.5% and above baseline threshold levels

2.6 Vaccination

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

• up to week 48 2019, in 90.1% of GP practices in England, the provisional proportion of people who had received the 2019 to 2020 influenza vaccine in targeted groups was 35.4% in under 65 years in a clinical risk group, 37.5% in pregnant women and 67.5% in those aged 65 and over
• up to week 48 2019, in 90.6% of GP practices reporting for the childhood collection the provisional proportion vaccinated was 25.4% in 2 year olds and 24.5% in 3 year olds

Provisional data from the first monthly collection of influenza vaccine uptake by frontline healthcare workers show 43.6% were vaccinated by 31 October 2019, compared to 46.3% vaccinated in the previous season by 31 October 2018.

Provisional data from the first monthly collection of influenza vaccine uptake for children of school years reception to year 6 shows 17.9% in school year reception age, 17.6% in school year 1 age, 17.3% in school year 2 age, 16.6% in school year 3 age, 16.4% in school year 4 age, 15.8% in school year 5 and 15.2% in school year 6 age were vaccinated by 31 October 2019.

3. International situation

• in In the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere, influenza activity remained at inter-seasonal levels in most countries; however continued to increase across the countries of the Western Asia
• in the temperate zones of the southern hemisphere, influenza activity returned to interseasonal levels in most countries and decreased to low levels in Chile
• worldwide, seasonal influenza A accounted for the majority of detections, with equal proportions of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and A(H3N2) viruses.

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.