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 21 April 2022, the ECDC published the fifth virus characterisation period report for the 2021 to 2022 influenza season. As of week 13 of 2022, 90,644 influenza detections across the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region have been reported. Of these, 98% were type A viruses, with A(H3N2) dominating over A(H1N1)pdm09, and 2% were type B viruses, with all but one being ascribed to a lineage (B/Victoria). This represents an increase in detections compared to the 2020 to 2021 season, following a large increase in the number of samples tested, but the number of detections is reduced compared to earlier seasons.

Source: ECDC, 21 April 2022