The bronchiolitis epidemic, which mainly affects babies, is now over in mainland France, the public health agency announced on Wednesday, noting also a decline in seasonal flu. “There are no longer any regions at epidemic or post-epidemic alert level in mainland France,” Public Health France said in its weekly report on bronchiolitis.
Overseas, however, the epidemic is still hitting Mayotte and Reunion. Bronchiolitis, which causes babies to cough and have difficulty breathing, is usually mild but this season has caused an outbreak on a scale not seen in more than a decade.
This outbreak put hospitals in difficulty, especially as it added to the successive waves of Covid-19, as well as the seasonal flu epidemic. This, which started quite early, calmed down at the start of the year but then observed a small rebound, partly fueled by a different strain of the virus.
“Decrease in flu indicators in the city”
Now, this recovery seems to have peaked. Public Health France reported a “decrease in influenza indicators in town and in hospital in all age groups”.
This decline comes without the number of cases having reached the peak of the first wave, which suggests that the second will not reach the levels of the end of 2022. However, the virus continues to circulate a lot and most regions of metropolises – 11 out of 13 as the previous week – remain affected by the epidemic.
Only Hauts-de-France and Normandy are still emerging from the epidemic. Overseas, the West Indies and Guyana remain affected.