General practitioners see an exceptionally high number of patients with flu symptoms. For example, it appears that per 100,000 inhabitants, 764 of them visit a doctor with flu complaints. These numbers have never been this high in the past five years. So says the Sciensano report. “We’ve had bigger flu epidemics before, but there’s definitely an epidemic. There is also a clear difference with last year, when flu was hardly present,” says GP Raf Roesems, who sees many people with flu symptoms, including many respiratory infections.
Jolien PolletSource: Radio 1, Belgian
Last year we went to the doctor en masse to be tested for the corona virus, today we crawl into the same doctor’s practice with severe flu symptoms. The health institute Sciensano also speaks of a moderately intense flu epidemic in Belgium.
Raf Roesems, general practitioner from Vilvoorde, agrees. “We see an exceptionally high number of sick people, more than we have seen in the past five years,” says Radio 1.
Weakened immune system
We cannot say for sure that wearing a face mask has weakened our immunity, and whether this has anything to do with the current flu epidemic. “It is not clear whether our immunity has weakened, but we may indeed have become more susceptible to viruses. And there are simply a lot of viruses circulating at the moment,” says Roesems.
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According to the GP, we are talking about various flu viruses, including minor respiratory infections that are often harmless, but still cause annoying complaints. Roesems also still warns about the current advance of covid-19.
Corona on the rise again
“Nationally, we are around 11,000 corona infections per day and I fear that this is a gross underestimate,” says the doctor from Vilvoorde. “A while ago, all infections were confirmed with a PCR test, but most people now do self-tests and they are not always confirmed anymore. There is not only corona fatigue, but also test fatigue.”
Roesems therefore calls on you to keep a close eye on the figures and to be careful. “Most patients, including covid patients, have mild complaints, but in recent days we have seen an advance of covid in rest homes, which are a lot more fragile. We will have to keep a close eye on that.”
Staff loss at hospitals
The increase in corona infections and the flu epidemic are putting enormous pressure on hospitals. There are almost 3,000 people with a Covid infection in an ordinary hospital bed, although the number in the intensive care units remains relatively limited to 172. “But on top of that, the hospitals receive many people with a complication on top of the flu or another respiratory virus. ”, reports Zorgnet-Icuro.
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In addition, the healthcare sector has been struggling with a huge loss of staff all winter. At least 10 percent of hospital staff has been absent since the beginning of January, according to the healthcare umbrella. In some places there are peaks of up to 20 percent absenteeism due to illness. “The intensity of the failure and especially the long duration makes it very hard on the floor,” says Margot Cloet, Managing Director at Zorgnet-Icuro. “Constantly missing more than one in ten people makes it very difficult to get the shifts done.”
The shortage of staff also leads to a decrease in the number of available beds. On March 30, 175 intensive and 2,504 regular beds were closed in Belgian hospitals. More and more hospitals are forced to postpone and shift plannable interventions and treatments again. “And that while they were still working on a major catch-up operation after wave four and five”, it sounds.
A quarter of the residential care centers that are affiliated with Zorgnet-Icuro also report a staff loss of more than 10 percent.