It had been two winters since, due to Covid-19, the winter epidemics of bronchiolitis and influenza had been atypical and less intense than normal. At the end of 2022, on the other hand, the scenario is quite different: the indicators used by the health authorities to monitor these two diseases have jumped, with precocity and virulence, adding to the difficulties linked to the ninth wave of the Covid-19 epidemic.
Six times more flu than the average for SOS-Médecins
During the winter of 2021-2022, the flu arrived late, reaching its epidemic peak only in March. But it came back at the end of the year several weeks ahead of the average for the past eleven years. As the flu epidemic generates proportionally fewer visits to the emergency room than that of bronchiolitis, we use the data from SOS-Médecins to characterize the epidemic. Like the month of March, the data for the week of December 12 show seven consecutive weeks of increased consultations, with a rate six times higher than the average, and an epidemic which took hold early and took on an unusual scale.
The peak of bronchiolitis has passed, the level remains high
In 2022, the bronchiolitis epidemic also started early. Over the last ten years, the bronchiolitis case curve peaks between the end of December and the beginning of January. This year, the respiratory disease – which affects children under the age of 2 – is already reaching levels higher than the episodes of the last eleven years. Because, in addition to being early, the epidemic is virulent: despite a drop in indicators for the third week in a row, which shows that the epidemic peak has passed, the number of cases for ten thousand consultations is still well above above average, and “the intensity of the epidemic is still close to the level reached during the peaks of previous years”.
In the epidemic monitoring bulletin of December 21, the Public Health France organization specifies that hospitalizations for bronchiolitis still represent 44% of hospitalizations for children under 2 years of age, which puts pressure on pediatric services in the middle of the Christmas holidays.