Flu season continues / Photo: Agerpres
11 patients diagnosed with flu died in the last week in Romania, the number of deaths caused by flu in this cold season thus rising to 68, according to the data published on Thursday by the National Institute of Public Health. The number of illnesses remains high: in the last week there were 9,039 cases of clinical flu nationwide, increasing compared to the previous week (8,499 cases) and 1.6 times more than the average of the last 5 seasons (5,555).
In total, in the week of January 26 – February 1, the most recent period centralized by INSP, there were 112,896 cases of respiratory infections (clinical flu, acute respiratory infections and pneumonia), with 7.6% more illnesses compared to the previous week (104,973), but with 34.7% fewer cases compared to the same week of the previous season (172,877).
Regarding the flu, the most illnesses were registered in Bucharest (1,135) and in the counties of Prahova (894) and Constanța (704).
209 cases of influenza were laboratory confirmed (57 with AH3 influenza virus, 13 with AH1 influenza virus, 137 with non-subtyped influenza A virus and 2 with influenza B virus).
Since the beginning of the cold season, a total of 1,444 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza have been reported, including:
- 428 with AH3 influenza virus;
- 72 with influenza virus AH1;
- 937 cases with non-subtyped influenza A virus;
- 6 cases with influenza B virus;
- a case with influenza A+B virus co-infection.
In all confirmed cases with AH3 influenza virus, with samples sequenced in the Cantacuzino Institute, subclass K was detected, according to the INSP.
In total, since the beginning of this cold season, there have been 68 confirmed deaths with the flu virus, including 11 in the last week:
- 10 in people with influenza type A, subtype H1;
- 24 in people with influenza type A, subtype H3;
- 33 in people with influenza type A;
- a type A and subtype H3+B co-infection.
The 68 deaths were recorded in the following age groups:
- one at 5-14 years;
- 5 to 15-49 years;
- 6 at 50-64 years;
- 56 to ≥65 years.
By February 1, 1,300,994 people who had been vaccinated against influenza were registered in the National Electronic Register of Vaccinations (RENV), 1,274,242 of them being part of the population groups that benefit from the compensated vaccine.
