The bronchiolitis epidemic is likely to be particularly marked this winter after a blank year linked to Covid-19. She touches “now all the regions of mainland France with the passage of Corsica in the epidemic phase”, announced the agency Public Health France, Wednesday 10 November. The island was the last region of the metropolis to remain in the pre-epidemic phase after Brittany entered the epidemic last week.
In children under 2 years of age, the main age group struck by bronchiolitis, the indicators remain at a “high level”, specifies the agency, which had been reporting for several weeks a strong progression. During the week of November 1, of the 4,100 children under 2 seen in the emergency room for bronchiolitis, 3,652 (89%) were under one year of age and 1,427 (35%) were hospitalized. Of the children hospitalized, 1,331 (93%) were under one year of age.
Common and highly contagious, bronchiolitis causes babies to cough and difficult, rapid, wheezing. Most of the time benign, it may however require a visit to the emergency room, or even hospitalization.
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Last winter, confinements and anti-Covid barrier gestures helped block all viruses, including RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), responsible for bronchiolitis. The children were less infected than usual and therefore have less collective immunity, raising fears of a stronger epidemic this year. This phenomenon could also concern other winter viruses, including those of influenza or gastroenteritis.
Public Health France is also monitoring seasonal influenza, for which the vaccination campaign has been launched for a few weeks. For the time being, the disease is limited to “sporadic cases”, according to the agency, which reports a single case admitted to critical care in hospital.