Number of people with flu continues to increase, flu epidemic continues

ANP

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 16:35

The number of people with the flu continues to increase, according to the new figures from the RIVM. More and more people come to the GP with flu complaints and a high number of flu viruses are found in hospital laboratories.

Last week, 103 per 100,000 inhabitants went to their GP with flu-like symptoms, according to research institute Nivel. A week earlier this was still at 66 per 100,000.

In the samples taken from people with a respiratory tract infection, the proportion of the influenza virus turned out to be high: 37 percent of the samples were positive last week. That means the flu epidemic continues. In the last week of December, 49 percent of the tests were positive, compared to 36 percent the week before.

Also other viruses

It is not known how many people actually have the flu, but that is always higher than the official figures because many people get sick at home without visiting a doctor. In addition to the flu virus, there are other viruses circulating in the Netherlands that cause respiratory complaints, such as the RS virus and the corona virus.

The flu epidemic started four weeks ago, just before Christmas. In the Netherlands, we speak of a flu epidemic when more than 58 out of 100,000 people go to their GP with flu-like symptoms for two weeks in a row and at least 10 percent of these people have the flu virus.

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