ECDC publishes influenza virus characterisation report

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) periodically publishes influenza characterisation reports, giving an overview of circulating influenza viruses. These reports provide details on current vaccine strains, summarise the development of viruses since the last report and closely follow the main developments for the ongoing influenza season.

On 10 March 2022, the ECDC published the fourth virus characterisation period report for the 2021 to 2022 influenza season. As of week eight of 2022, 44,665 influenza detections across the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region had been reported. Of these, 97% were type A viruses, with A(H3N2) dominating over A(H1N1)pdm09, and 3% were type B viruses, with 19 having been ascribed to a lineage, all of which were B/Victoria. This represents an increase of 6,273% in detections compared to the 2020−2021 season, on the back of an increase of 383% in the number of samples tested.

Source: ECDC, 11 March 2022