The flu epidemic continues to spread in France. It has now won almost the entire metropolis, including the Paris region where it is resuming after having declined at the start of the year, shows, Wednesday March 16, the weekly report from the Public Health Agency.
The past week has been marked by a “significant increase in all the indicators [de la] flu “ in mainland France, summarizes Public Health France, noting that, from now on, “all metropolitan areas [sont touchées par l’] epidemic, except Corsica”. This includes Ile-de-France, which, hit early by the epidemic at the end of 2021, had experienced a lull at the start of the year and was no longer considered to be in the epidemic phase. She went back there this week.
Less immune French people
Outside mainland France, Guyana is also hit by the flu epidemic, but the other departments are spared. This flight of the flu is unusually late. In recent years, the peak of the epidemic – measured by the consultation rate in relation to the number of inhabitants – took place in February.
Winter 2020-2021 was however special, due to the containment measures taken against Covid-19. They had, by extension, made it possible to block the circulation of many other microbes, such as the flu virus.
However, the French, less infected than usual, are also less immunized collectively, which favored a resumption of the epidemic this winter. This remains, however, below the levels observed in 2019-2020, just before Covid-19, and especially in 2018-2019 when the epidemic had been particularly strong.