Next flu season could be extra tough because far fewer than usual have been infected with the flu during the corona pandemic.
This is what Tyra Grove Krause, head of the infection preparedness department at the Statens Serum Institut (SSI), tells TV2.
The number of cases of influenza infection has plummeted in recent seasons because the preventive measures and closures in connection with the covid-19 pandemic have helped to curb the flu infection.
In the previous flu season from October 2019 to mid-May 2020, 52,000 Danes were examined or treated. Among them, 6,566 were infected with influenza.
In the most recent season from October last year to mid-May, more than 60,000 Danes have been treated or examined for influenza. According to the Statens Serum Institut, only 40 of them were infected – a massive drop.
And that could affect the upcoming flu season, says Tyra Grove Krause.
– It is clear that we have a concern that next season may be tough. Normally you get a bit of immunity when someone gets infected, but if suddenly a type comes along who has changed a lot from before, then it can hit harder, she tells TV2.
Infection rates with influenza have also fallen sharply in the United States and several other countries.
This could ultimately create a risk that this year’s flu vaccine will not have the same effect as previous years, when the World Health Organization, WHO, has to select the virus strains to be used in this year’s vaccine in February. This selection is based on which influenza virus variants have been dominant.
Therefore, according to Tyra Grove Krause, it has become more important to achieve as high a connection to the vaccination program against influenza as possible.
– Last year we achieved a higher vaccine coverage in the population than ever before, and the ambition is of course to repeat it this year. In this way, we can also secure the vulnerable citizens better, it sounds.
Source: The Nordic Page