Respiratory tract infections: Weekly review - 6 to 12 March 2023

The weekly retrospective gives you a broader overview of respiratory viruses in general: including COVID-19 and influenza.

COVID-19

During the week of 6 to 12 March 2023, the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 increased to 1784 cases, compared to 1606 cases the previous week (+11.1%).

Among all those who tested positive, 54.6% were re-infected, compared to 52.3% the previous week.

One new death in connection with COVID-19 is to be deplored.

The age of the deceased person is 80 years.

During this week there was an average of 19 confirmed COVID-19 positive patients hospitalised per day in normal care, compared to 16 the previous week. In intensive care, the number of occupied beds is 1. The average age of hospitalised patients is 65 years. 

Vaccinations: update on the situation

For the week of 6 March to 12 March 2023, a total of 101 doses were administered. 3 people received a 1st dose, 4 a 2nd dose, 13 people received one complementary dose to a full vaccination, 78 received a second complementary dose to a full vaccination and 3 received a third complementary dose to a full vaccination and 0 a fourth complementary dose to a full vaccination, raising the total number of vaccines administered as of 12 March 2023 to 1,293,208.

474,981 people have a complete vaccination pattern, which corresponds to a vaccination rate of 79% of the eligible population (i.e. the 5+ population).

The evolution of the variants

Variant sequencing data are published in the REVILUX report on the website of the National Health Laboratory (Laboratoire national de Santé, LNS) https://lns.lu/publications/

Currently the recombinant variant XBB.1.5 is the most frequent representing 50.8% in week 9 (46.1% in week 8). The Omicron BQ.1 variant represents 13.3% in week 9 (22.6% in week 8). 

Wastewater monitoring in Luxembourg as part of SARS-CoV-2

The CORONASTEP report is published every 15 days.

The next report is planned for Tuesday 21 March and will contain data for weeks 10 and 11.

All CORONASTEP reports are available on the LIST website: ​

https://www.list.lu/en/covid-19/coronastep/

Influenza

For the week of 6 to 12 March 2023, the number of influenza cases reported by laboratories increased to 387 cases from 322 cases in the previous week, an increase of 20.2% compared to the previous week. Currently the influenza B virus is predominant. 

The microbiology department of the LNS, in collaboration with the Health Directorate and a network of sentinel general practitioners and paediatricians throughout the country, carries out annual influenza sentinel surveillance.

Data on the influenza sentinel are published in the REVILUX report on the National Health Laboratory website LNS  https://lns.lu/publications/

Press release by the Ministry of Health, the Laboratoire national de santé (LNS) and the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)