Economy 13 April 2023, 4:21pm

Flu epidemic easing in Hungary, but there are still a lot of sick people

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The number of respiratory illnesses and of people seeking medical help with influenza-like symptoms dropped further in Hungary over the past seven days compared to the preceding week, the weekly report of the National Centre for Public Health (NNK) showed on Thursday. The decline gathered pace and there were 48% fewer visits relating to SARI and nearly 72% fewer complaints about the flu than six weeks ago, at the height of the epidemic.

The NNK said that on the 14th week of the year, 154,600 people went to the doctor with symptoms of severe acute respiratory infections (down from 200,700 a week earlier), of whom 18,600 (12.0%) were diagnosed with influenza-like illness, in contrast with 29,800 (14.8%) a week earlier.

If it were not for the holiday season when people are less inclined to visit the GP's office and complain about "just a wee cough", we would not see that dip towards end-2022 in the lines below.

Here's another chart attesting the peak in the epidemic was left behind 1.5 months ago.

The SARI figure shows a 23% drop (versus 7.0% a week ago), and the number of flu-like symptoms has fallen by almost 38% (vs. 24.4% a week ago), i.e. the winding down of the flu season cannot be called into question.

A breakdown of the positive samples show the prevalence of the flu, followed by SARS-CoV-2 and RSV. The graph shows percentages of cumulated data, with the x axis showing the weeks starting on the 40th week of 2022 up to the 14th week of 2023.

OF THE 37 RESPIRATORY SPECIMENS (DOWN SHARPLY FROM 88 A WEEK AGO) SENT IN BY DOCTORS, 14 (37.8%) WERE FOUND TO BE INFLUENZA OF SOME TYPE, two (5.4%) WERE SARS-COV-2, AND TWO (5.4%) PATIENTS HAD RESPIRATORY GIANT CELL VIRUS (RSV).

This compares with 46.6%, 10.2% and 2.3% the week before, respectively.

Last week, 166 people (201 on the preceding week) were hospitalised for severe acute respiratory infections, 17 of whom required intensive care (28 a week earlier). Of the 166 patients, 25.3% (42) were aged 2 years or younger (up from 23.9% or 48) and 44.6% (74) were aged 60 years or older (versus 48.8% or 98 a week ago).

Of the patients requiring hospital care, 10 or 6.0% were affected by influenza (vs. 19 or 9.5% a week ago), 42 (25.3%) by SARS-CoV-2 (vs. 65 or 32.3% a week ago) and 5 (3.0%) by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) or respiratory giant cell infection (vs. 15 or 7.5% a week ago).

40% of RSV positive patients (2) were 2 years old or younger, while 85.7% (36) of people hospitalised with coronavirus infection were in the 60+ age group. The former figure shows a sharp drop from 86.7% last week and the latter was largely flat (vs 87.7%).

The age breakdown (see the four graphs below) shows that SARI affected primarily children, and to a smaller extent young adults since the 40th week of last year, while flu-like illnesses started to "pick on" children and young Hungarians from the fourth week of 2023.

Of course, the greater number of infections among children also has to do with the fact that concerned parents generally take their offspring to a paediatrician much more willingly and frequently than older people seek medical help, thinking they will just tough it out.

Of all the patients that went to the doctor with flu-like symptoms, 40.9% (7,607 vs. 12,099 a week ago) were children. 30.2% were aged 15-34 (5,617 vs. 9,029), 21.8% (4,055 vs. 6,467) were in the 35-59 age group, and 7.7% (1,432 vs. 2,205) were over 60.

As for the age breakdown of people going to the doctor with SARI, 51.6% (79,774 vs. 104,163 a week ago) were children, 23.6% were aged 15-34 (36,486 vs. 48,369), 16.0% (24,736 vs. 31,911) were in the 35-59 age group, and 8.8% (13,605 vs. 16,257) were over 60.