It appears that the circulation of influenza in the southern hemisphere – which includes Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, South Africa and Zimbabwe – is low. However, careful assessment of what will happen in the Northern Hemisphere – which includes North America, Europe, and much of Asia – must be done with caution.
Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO Technical Director for Covid-19, stated that the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System is used in countries for both influenza and Covid-19. This system collects examples from around the world of people who have flu-like or serious diseases to test for viruses such as flu.
Many countries continue to test for influenza, and in the last two weeks of reporting for this system, nearly 300,000 forms of influenza were tested. Only 37 returned positive for the virus, “so it looks like flu circulation is low.”
This could be for a number of reasons, Van Kerkhove said.
In the southern hemisphere, where it is flu season, many public health measures that were in place to protect against Covid-19 would play a role in reducing flu circulation.
“I think we need to be careful about making an assessment of what could happen in the Northern Hemisphere for a number of reasons,” Van Kerkhove said.
First and foremost, she said, systems deployed around the world must continue to be tested for both Covid-19 and influenza. It is also important that people get vaccinated for the flu when the vaccine becomes available.
Because it could be difficult to directly distinguish between a Covid-19 infection or a flu infection, testing will be necessary.
“It could complicate the clinical picture, but there are tools that are in place for flu,” Van Kerkhove said. “That it’s really, really important then when the vaccine becomes available for flu, that people take that vaccine.”
Covid-19 hit the Northern Hemisphere because many places came out of the flu season, according to Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser at WHO.
Much of the oversupply capacity used to manage critically ill Covid-19 patients initially came from the surge capacity gained from dealing with the flu, he said.
“That marks the reason it’s so important to get the flu vaccination rate this year, even relative to previous years,” Aylward said. “We potentially need that capacity to manage Covid.”
There is also still an “enormous sensitivity gap” when it comes to Covid-19, Aylward said.
“We are going into a high season for transmission of respiratory diseases and therefore we are concerned that we have all possible capacity to manage that,” he said. “And part of that will be managing and managing flu, and ensuring optimal flu vaccination.”
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