Official Statistics

National flu report summary: 30 January 2020 (week 5)

Updated 1 October 2020

1. Main points: data up to week 4, 2020

Data up to week 4 (ending 26 January 2020) shows:

• during week 4, influenza activity continues to decrease with several indicators remaining below baseline levels
• the impact of flu on healthcare services is at low intensity levels for hospitalisations and ICU/HDU influenza admissions
• the Department of Health & Social Care has issued an alert on the prescription of antiviral medicines by GPs

The full weekly flu report this summary is based on, accompanying spreadsheet of data and slideset are available from weekly national flu reports: 2019 to 2020 season.

2. Surveillance scheme summaries

2.1 Community

Data from outbreak surveillance shows:

• there have been 37 new acute respiratory outbreaks reported in the past 7 days
• 27 outbreaks were reported from care homes where 9 tested positive for influenza A
• 8 outbreaks were reported from hospitals where 1 tested positive for influenza B
• the remaining two outbreaks were reported from the Other settings category where one tested positive for influenza A

2.2 Primary care

Data from primary care surveillance shows:

• the overall weekly influenza-like illness (ILI) rate decreased to 9.0 per 100,000 registered population in participating GP practices for England and is now below baseline threshold levels, a decrease from 10.3 per 100,000 in the previous week
• in the devolved administrations, ILI rates were at baseline levels in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales for week 4

2.3 Secondary care

Data from secondary care surveillance shows:

• hospitalisation rate observed was at low impact levels, with a rate of 1.05per 100,000 in week 4 compared to 1.39 per 100,000 trust catchment population in the previous week, for England (19 NHS Trusts)
• ICU and HDU admission rate observed was at low impact levels, with a rate of 0.10 per 100,000 in week 4 compared to 0.13 per 100,000 trust catchment population in the previous week, for England (134 out of 143 NHS Trusts)
• there were 4 new influenza confirmed admission (4 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09) reported from the 6 severe respiratory failure centres in the UK

2.4 All-cause mortality

Data from all-cause mortality surveillance shows:

• statistically significant excess all-cause mortality by week of death was seen overall and by region in England in week 4
• in the devolved administrations, statistically significant excess all-cause mortality for all ages was observed in Wales. No excess was noted for Northern Ireland in week 4 2020 and for Scotland in week 2 2020

2.5 Microbiological surveillance

Data from microbiological surveillance shows:

• in primary care, 8 samples tested positive for influenza (3 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, 1 influenza A(H3), 1 influenza A(not subtyped) and 3 influenza B) through the UK GP sentinel swabbing schemes in week 3, with an overall positivity of 12.1%
• a total of 171 detections were recorded through the DataMart scheme (33 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, 61 influenza A(H3), 52 influenza A(not subtyped) and 25 influenza B) with an overall positivity of 6.9% and below baseline threshold levels

2.6 Vaccination

Data from the GP patient, healthcare worker and primary school-age children flu vaccine uptake programmes shows:

• up to week 4 2020, in 98.4% of GP practices in England, the provisional proportion of people who had received the 2019 to 2020 influenza vaccine in targeted groups was 43.1% in under 65 years in a clinical risk group, 42.8% in pregnant women and 71.6% in those aged 65 and over
• up to week 4 2020, in 97.9% of GP practices reporting for the childhood collection the provisional proportion vaccinated was 41.1% in 2 year olds and 41.8% in 3 year olds

Provisional data from the third monthly collection of influenza vaccine uptake by frontline healthcare workers show 68.5% were vaccinated by 31 December 2019, compared to 65.8% vaccinated in the previous season by 31 December 2018.

Provisional data from the second monthly collection of influenza vaccine uptake for children of school years reception to year 6 shows 61.6% in school year reception age, 60.9% in school year 1 age, 60.1% in school year 2 age, 58.1% in school year 3 age, 57.3% in school year 4 age, 55.0% in school year 5 and 52.8% in school year 6 age were vaccinated by 31 December 2019.

3. International situation

In the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere, influenza activity and respiratory illness indicators continued to circulate with some countries having peaked.

In the temperate zones of the southern hemisphere, influenza activity remained at interseasonal levels.

Worldwide, seasonal influenza A(H3N2) viruses accounted for the majority of detections.

4. Further information

See ‘seasonal influenza: guidance, data and analysis’ for further information on the symptoms, diagnosis, management, surveillance and epidemiology of seasonal influenza (flu).

See ‘sources of UK flu data: influenza surveillance in the UK’ for further information and guidance on the surveillance schemes we use to track seasonal influenza.