What is the influenza B getting into, which rears its head again just as the birds are starting to sing again between three snowflakes? Because yes, there is a resurgence of the flu, the influenza seems to have lost all sense of the seasons.
The latest data from the Institut national de santé publique du Québec bears witness to this, says Dr. Gaston De Serres, who is a physician-epidemiologist there. There is indeed a rise in cases which is “relatively slow”, but of which we do not know how high it will go.
It is in Montreal (7.09%), in the Laurentians (5.96%) and in Laval (4.86%) that the percentage of positive cases of influenza B reported by the laboratories is the highest, according to the most recent data. Strangely, Montérégie is mostly affected by influenza A (8.31%).
Aren’t we getting to that time of year where you might think flu season is pretty much behind us? Yes, usually in the spring things calm down, says Dr. Donald Vinh, infectious disease specialist and microbiologist at the McGill University Health Center.
But since the pandemic, viruses have behaved much more erratically. Just remember how unusually early the flu showed up last fall, continues Dr. Vinh, who does not rule out that we are even “at the start of a new flu season” right now. .
Generally speaking, “for the past two and a half years, we have had very little exposure to the flu virus and our herd immunity is low [in recent years],” Dr. Vinh points out.
Without understanding why so far, Dr. Vinh notes, COVID, during the early years of the pandemic, “disappeared all the other viruses” and our system kind of got out of it. The flu is not a trivial disease and people who have health problems should be wary of it.
The first good news, however, is that the B strain, which is currently on the rise, is less likely to develop new strains quickly than influenza A (which is the most prevalent these days in the United States).
In Alberta, Radio-Canada has just reported, the flu season – still underway there too – is shaping up to be one of the worst in history, with the province having recorded 117 deaths from influenza. . (Figures for Quebec are not yet available.)
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there have been 26 million cases of the flu since the start of the season. Of this number, 290,000 infected people had to be hospitalized and 18,000 people died.
Besides the flu, are there any other infections to be feared these days? Drs Vinh and De Serres observe that the existing data do not allow to say this.
In addition to the vaccine that Health Canada considers to be the most effective precaution against influenza, it is recommended, as with COVID, to avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth if you have not washed your hands. , and to wash them frequently, at least 20 seconds with hot water and soap.
