Diseases The dreaded flu season was again under the crown

Coronary pandemic reduced other respiratory infections last year, says the Department of Health and Welfare THL.

According to the THL Infectious Diseases Registry, in 2021, for example, there were significantly fewer laboratory-confirmed cases of pulmonary chlamydia and mycoplasma. Usually, these bacteria cause symptoms of a respiratory infection. Rhinovirus occurred as in the previous year, but its typical spring and autumn peaks were not observed.

The most common bacteria causing intestinal infections, such as salmonella, shigella, campylobacter, and yersinia, were also found to be less common than in previous years.

Also in the first year of the epidemic in 2020, it was noted that restrictive measures aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus significantly reduced other respiratory infections.

Hence the part experts feared in advance that the flu season would become more severe than usual. Influenza infections usually occur especially in November-December and in the spring and winter. However, there was no influenza epidemic this year either, and only individual influenza findings were reported to the Infectious Diseases Registry.

“During the coronary pandemic, the diagnosis of respiratory infections was mainly focused on the coronavirus. It is therefore possible that other respiratory infections have therefore not been verified, ”THL’s chief physician Tuula Hannila-Handelberg says in a press release.

Its instead, the number of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) clearly increased with the camping boom. Last year, a total of 151 cases were reported to the Communicable Diseases Register, compared with 91 in 2020.

TBE infections have been reported particularly in humans moving naturally in areas with a high incidence of tick-borne encephalitis.

In the spring of 2022, the national tick-borne encephalitis vaccination program expanded to new areas in Kirkkonummi and Lohja.