Significantly fewer flu cases have been registered in Bavaria since the beginning of October than in the same period last year. As of January 8, 2024, the health authorities had reported 3,758 cases to the State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) in Erlangen. This means that the previous numbers for the 2023/2024 season are significantly lower than those of the previous one, as a spokesman announced: at that time, the authority recorded almost 54,100 cases in the comparable period.
The LGL suspects that the reason for this development is an improved basic immunity of the population: During the corona pandemic, masks and distance also reduced the circulation of other respiratory viruses. “This could also have led to gaps in immunity for other respiratory diseases and explains the catch-up effect, especially in the last season,” said the spokesman. But other factors, such as the subtypes that were widespread in previous years, are also crucial for the course and severity of an influenza season.
No forecast can be made as to how the flu wave will progress this winter. Over the holidays and at the beginning of the new year, some of the practices were closed and fewer samples were taken. Accordingly, fewer detections of pathogens were reported to the authorities. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has dated the start of the flu season in Germany to mid-December 2023. At the National Reference Center for Influenza Viruses at the RKI, samples from patients with symptoms of an acute respiratory infection are regularly examined. According to the experts, to put it simply, the flu wave begins when influenza viruses are detected in every fifth patient sample.
Influenza often manifests itself through a sudden onset of illness with fever, muscle aches or headaches, as the RKI reported. A dry, irritating cough often occurs a little later. A third of those affected have only mild symptoms, another third have no symptoms at all. Those affected are usually sick for five to seven days. In 2022, the flu wave started in November and therefore unusually early. According to the RKI, in the years before Corona it usually started in January and lasted three to four months.