In the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, influenza activity continues to decrease in the month of September in many countries reporting data to FluNet and EMFLU namely, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates.
In September 2019, Proportion of tested cases for influenza in EMR is 93.5% out of 5,974 enrolled cases, 24.7% of the tested cases is positive and 75.3% is negative.
Figure 1: Influenza geographic spread by type and subtypes, September 2019.
Influenza activity by sub-type
• In September 2019, no new cases of human influenza A(H5N1) were reported in Egypt.
• In the northern Africa influenza transmission zone, Egypt continued reporting low influenza activity with influenza B viruses being predominated while Morocco reported sporadic influenza B viruses detection.
• In the western Asia influenza transmission zone, influenza detections were low across reporting countries. Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait continued reporting co-circulation of influenza types A and B while Bahrain reported circulation of only influenza A(H1N1)pdm. Iraq, Jordan, oPt reported no activity.
• In southern Asia transmission zone, Iran reported co-circulation of influenza types A and B while Afghanistan, and Pakistan reported sporadic influenza B detection.
Figure 2: Circulating influenza viruses by subtype
Figure 3: Circulating influenza viruses in the EMR by subtype, September 2019
Sources
• FluNet
• EMFLU
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