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. 2021 Mar;26(11):2100221.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.11.2100221.

Very little influenza in the WHO European Region during the 2020/21 season, weeks 40 2020 to 8 2021

Cornelia Adlhoch  1 , Piers Mook  2 , Favelle Lamb  1 , Lisa Ferland  1 , Angeliki Melidou  1 , Andrew J Amato-Gauci  1 , Richard Pebody  2 ; European Influenza Surveillance Network  3
Collaborators, Affiliations

Very little influenza in the WHO European Region during the 2020/21 season, weeks 40 2020 to 8 2021

Cornelia Adlhoch et al. Euro Surveill. 2021 Mar.

Abstract

Between weeks 40 2020 and 8 2021, the World Health Organization European Region experienced a 99.8% reduction in sentinel influenza virus positive detections (33/25,606 tested; 0.1%) relative to an average of 14,966/39,407 (38.0%; p < 0.001) over the same time in the previous six seasons. COVID-19 pandemic public health and physical distancing measures may have extinguished the 2020/21 European seasonal influenza epidemic with just a few sporadic detections of all viral subtypes. This might possibly continue during the remainder of the influenza season.

Keywords: 2020/21 season; Europe; epidemiology; influenza; surveillance.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Numbers of specimens in the 2020 interseason (weeks 21–39) (A) testing positive for influenza virus in sentinel surveillance and (B) in non-sentinel surveillance, as well as (C–D) numbers of specimens tested for influenza virus by these respective surveillance systems, compared with minimum, mean and maximum of 2014–2019 interseasons, WHO European Region
Figure 2
Figure 2
Sentinel-surveillance-obtained numbers of (A) specimens testing positive for influenza virus and (B) specimens tested in the 2020/21 season up to week 8, compared with minimum, mean and maximum of previous seasons (weeks 40–20) in 2014/15–2019/20, WHO European Region
Figure 3
Figure 3
Proportion of specimens testing positive (positivity) for influenza virus in sentinel surveillance in weeks 40 2020–8 2021 compared with minimum, mean and maximum of previous seasons in 2014/15–2019/20, WHO European Region
Figure 4
Figure 4
Non-sentinel-surveillance-obtained numbers of (A) specimens testing positive for influenza virus and (B) specimens tested in the 2020/21 season up to week 8, compared with minimum, mean and maximum of previous seasons (weeks 40–20) in 2014/15–2019/20, WHO European Region
Figure 5
Figure 5
Number of hospitalised influenza cases in (A) non-ICU units, (B) ICU wards and (C) number of influenza positive cases from SARI surveillance, weeks 40 2020–8 2021 compared with minimum, mean and maximum of seasons 2014/15–2019/20, WHO European Region
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