Diseases
Millions of acute respiratory diseases
The prevalence of acute respiratory diseases in Germany remains at an elevated level. photo
© Maurizio Gambarini/dpa
Colds, Corona, RSV: The number of infections in Germany remains high. What is the situation in the clinics?
Many people in Germany are still suffering from colds and… Plagued by respiratory diseases. As in recent times, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is reporting high numbers of such infections. For example, the experts assume that there were around 6.8 million acute respiratory diseases in the population last week, regardless of whether the patient was at the doctor or not. In addition, the RKI is recording more and more corona evidence in its report and sees signs of an increasing spread of RSV (respiratory syncytial virus).
According to the RKI report, the number of laboratory-confirmed and reported corona infections last week was around 21,800 (previous week: 18,900) and a total of more than 95,500 since the beginning of October. But that is only a small excerpt of what actually happened. However, this has so far been reflected less strongly in clinics than it was during the pandemic. Compared to the same period last year, the number of severe respiratory diseases caused by Sars-CoV-2 “remains relatively lower,” it said.
The RKI reports on RSV from the random monitoring of severe acute respiratory infections in hospitals: A significant increase in RSV diagnoses in small children in the past two weeks could also be due to increased testing following the introduction of a nationwide RSV reporting requirement. The rate of RSV-positive samples in virological monitoring is still low.
According to the RKI, RSV is one of the most important pathogens causing respiratory infections in infants, especially premature babies and small children. After the peak phase of the corona pandemic, there were strong catch-up effects on the disease with a large number of young people affected. Experts expected things to return to normal this fall and winter.