Roundup: Influenza rolls through Germany

A strong wave of influenza spread across Germany in recent weeks, filling hospitals with increasing number of patients and even interrupting public transportation in some areas.

German media on Wednesday reported that many hospitals in southern parts of the country, where especially affected by the flu, were under pressure as patients went directly to hospitals for help instead of their own house doctors.

"The emergency departments in Bavaria are all completely full," Eduard Fuchshuber, a spokesman of the state's hospital association, was quoted by N24 television as saying. "I have never seen situations as extreme as this year."

Similar situations were seen in states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Lower Saxony where patient beds had to be set in hallways in some hospitals and planned surgeries and operations had to be postponed due to capability limits.

The latest data from Robert Koch Institute showed the number of influenza patients in Germany have increased to over 18,000 since October last year, exceeding a previously high amount of patients in 2012/2013 flu season.

The strong outbreak of influenza affected daily lives of several areas of Germany. In Karlsruhe, public transportation were interrupted as 20 percent of tram drivers were on sick leave, according to local media reports. In the children clinic of University Hospital Freiburg, every tenth of the staff were sick.

According to experts, however, the peak of the epidemic has yet arrived.

"In the past three weeks, the number of influenza infections in Germany has risen sharply, but the peak is expected only in the next three weeks," said Klaus Schughart, Head of Department Infection Genetics at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research.

The Braunschweig-based research center explained that the reason underlying widespread of influenza this year was that the circulating influenza virus H3N2 has mutated so that the vaccine which was produced in spring 2014 no longer fits.

"The strain of influenza used for vaccine production is selected one year ahead of time. For this purpose, a forecast is made on the basis of the previous year and the influenza viruses circulating at that time. Although the forecasts are usually very good, unfortunately this is not always the case," Schughart said. Endit