More than the epidemics of COVID-19, influenza and bronchiolitis, it is the closed beds that undermine the hospital system.
by Delphine Roucautus
The triple epidemic that marked the end of 2022 seems to end. The reflux began with the ninth wave of COVID-19, which gradually gave way to the flu during the month of December. After having reached exceptionally high levels, the share of hospitalizations for influenza syndrome continued to decrease between January 9 and 15, going from 22 to 9 hospitalizations for 1,000 inhabitants in one week. All the metropolitan regions remained despite everything in epidemic phase, according to the epidemiological bulletin published by Public Health France (SPF) January 18 . “The flu has often a fairly unpredictable profile so we remain vigilant about the possibility of a rebound, but we have very few positive samples currently”, Roman nuance Hernu, chief of emergency at the Croix-Rousse hospital, in Lyon.
In parallel, the immense wave of bronchiolitis cases – mainly caused in infants by the syncytial respiratory virus (VRS), but also by rhinovirus – is descended at low levels after the peak in early December 2022, the highest of the last ten years. The epidemic is officially completed in Ile-de-France, while six metropolitan regions have passed in the post-epidemic phase, according to the latest SPF data .
Thanks to the immunity acquired by the population, the health impact of the COVID-19 wave carried by the BQ.1.1 subvariant has remained relatively moderate compared to the previous ones. But hospitals had to manage the collateral effects of two years of barrier gestures: a higher number than usual of people who have not contracted viral infections for a long time, and therefore more likely to catch the usual cohort of viruses winter.
“If we expected that the flu and the VRS come back in force, we had not anticipated that the resurgence of winter viral infections also promotes invasive bacterial infections”, adds Anne-Claude Crémieux, professor ‘Infectiology at the Saint-Louis hospital, in Paris. In this regard, the increase in serious cases of infections by Streptococci A must serve as a warning. As for whether an anterior infection by the COVID-19 has been able to promote an infection by another respiratory virus, it will be necessary to wait for the result of the cohort studies carried out in particular in England. In fact, we recorded very little cases of flu-like/covid-19: only sixteen in France during the winter.
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