Weekly influenza surveillance overview, week 5 2014

​For week 5/2014:
• Of 29 countries providing clinical data, Greece reported high-intensity influenza activity, while Bulgaria, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Malta and Spain reported medium intensity and the other 22 countries reported low-intensity influenza activity.
• Bulgaria, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Spain and UK (England) experienced influenza activity that was geographically widespread.• Of 1 513 sentinel specimens tested across 26 countries, 394 (26%) were positive for influenza virus.
• Since week 40/2013, six countries have reported 1 605 hospitalised laboratory-confirmed influenza cases with 124 fatalities occurring in five countries.

Although the proportion of sentinel specimens testing positive for influenza virus has decreased in the last two weeks, the number of countries with regional or widespread geographic spread of influenza activity has increased compared to the previous week. Influenza A(H1)pdm09 and A(H3) viruses are co-circulating at the moment.