Economy 16 May 2024, 1:35pm

Respiratory inflections in sluggish retreat in Hungary

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The number of people seeking medical help with acute respiratory infection (ARI) dropped only slightly in Hungary on the 19th week of 2024, and the number of those going to the doctor with influenza-like symptoms also fell a bit. Nearly 62,000 (almost 52%) of the almost 118,900 ARI patients were children.

The number of people seeking medical help with influenza-like symptoms per 100,000 population (66.3) was never higher than currently in the past 12 cold seasons.

For the 52nd week of 2023, the NNK published only a couple of figures, hence the gaps in the graphs.

On the 19th week of 2024, a total of 118,900 people sought medical help with acute respiratory infection (ARI), of whom 6,400 (5.4%) had flu-like symptoms. The former figure marks a 2.9% decrease, while the latter corresponds to a mere 1.5% fall from the 18th week.

The rise in the number of ARI patients on the 15th week had to do with the fact that the 14th week had only four working days and during holidays people rather stay clear of the doctor unless it's an emergency. After essentially summer temperatures the weather turned chilly about a month ago and remained that way bar several days, hence the rise in ARI stats even on the 16th and 17th week.

We can also compare the ARI and flu numbers for 100,000 inhabitants. The epidemic has been more severe in this respect in 2023/24 than in 2022/23 in 40% of the weeks so far, between the 47th week of 2023 and the 7th week of 2024 and on the 17th and 18th weeks this year.

We need to note that this year authorities perform more tests than a year ago, even though the number of samples tested remains extremely low (82 in total on a national level last week, up from 76 on the 18th week).

As regards all samples tested up to the 19th week, the Covid positivity rate continues to be the highest, but the flu positivity rate is close behind, with one more week to 'catch up' - it won't happen by the way - as the NNGYK stops publishing epidemiological data for this flu season on the 20th week.

If we take a look at the positivity rates on the individual weeks, we find that there was a turnaround on the 2nd week, with the influenza positivity rate (14.0%) higher than the Covid positivity rate (13.6%) for the first time in the current flu season. The gap has widened considerably, reaching 38.8 percentage points on the 6th week and even reversed to -1.3 on the 18th week, before rising to 3.7 on the 19th week.

The influenza positivity rate was lower a year ago (2.9% vs. 3.7% now), and the Covid positivity rate hit 0% just like a year ago, while the RSV rate was lower a year ago at 0% versus 4.9% currently.

The share of coronavirus in all samples tested (orange lines) was a lot smaller a year ago (10.2%) than currently (15.1%), while the percentage of influenza in the samples (green lines) is considerably lower now (14.5%) than in the period between the 40th week of 2022 and the19th week of 2023 (42.0%).

As regards the prevalence of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in the samples (blue lines), the situation is much better in the current cold season than in 2022/23, with the share only at 5.2% by the 19th week this year versus 9.6% a year ago. Note that these are the percentages of the select pathogens found in all samples tested up to the 19th week.

People tested positive for influenza and RSV had to be hospitalised for the 20th consecutive week in this flu season. The 47th week was the first one when one of the samples showed influenza infection (up at 1,028 in total by the end of the 19th week). Other pathogens identified between the 40th and 19th week were SARS-CoV-2 (1,072), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV, 366), adenovirus (9), parainfluenza (13), human metapneumovirus (HMPV, 179, and rhinovirus (65).

The graphs below show a comparison with the previous 'flu season'. In 2022/23, there were no reports of people with Covid in hospitals up to the end of 2022, but that doesn't mean there weren't any (there were 100 on the first week of 2023, so it's a pretty safe bet that not all of them got to that stage overnight). In this respect, the Covid situation is now a lot better.

The following chart depicts the number and share of people infected by influenza virus who had to be hospitalised. As you can see (orange columns, light blue curve), this 'flu season' was worse in this respect than the previous one up to the 8th week, but we see a turnaround on the 9th week and a sharp drop on the 10th week with a further decline on subsequent weeks. The share of influenza patients of all people in hospital (0 out of 70) is the same as a year go (0.0%). (The chart starts on the 49th week because that was the first week in this season when someone infected with influenza virus had to be hospitalised.)

We have the same graph for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which shows that this infection was more severe in the previous 'flu season' up to the sixth week, but there was a turnaround on the 7th week. The number of people treated with RSV in hospitals dropped to zero on the 19th week from 3 a week earlier, which compares with 2 out of 120 a year ago.

Another important indicator of the severity of an epidemic is how many of those hospitalised end up in the intensive care unit.

There were 70 people with SARI in hospital on the week under review, up from 65 a week earlier. Four of them were in the ICU, down from seven a week ago, which corresponds to a 5.7% ratio, down from 10.8%.

Fewer children get sick

Finally, we have an age breakdown both for ARI and flu patients. Children up to the age of 14 remain on top of the ARI age rankings in terms of numbers. After 11 consecutive months they were no longer on top in the flu rankings (29.3%) on the 15th week, as the hardest-hit cluster has become the 15-34 age group (32.3%), although the difference in numbers is negligible (about 300 people). The same went for the 16th week, with the difference shrinking further (2,907 vs. 3,082), and on the 17th week the youngest took the lead again, which remained so on the 18th and the 19th week too (2,246 vs. 1,920). The right-hand charts show the share of people with ARI and flu-like symptoms by age group.

On the 19th week this year, about 61,700 children sought medical help with ARI, a decrease of only some 1,750 from a week ago, They represented 51.9% of all people that turned to the doctor with some respiratory infection.