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About FluWatch
FluWatch is Canada's national surveillance system that monitors the spread of flu and flu-like illnesses on an on-going basis. FluWatch reports, posted every Friday, contain specific information for health professionals on flu viruses circulating in Canada.
The FluWatch program consists of a network of labs, hospitals, doctor's offices and provincial and territorial ministries of health. Program objectives include to:
- Detect flu outbreaks across the country as early as possible
- Provide timely up-to-date information on flu activity in Canada and abroad to health professionals [and interested Canadians]
- Monitor circulating strains of the flu virus (like H1N1) and assess their sensitivity to antiviral medications, [such as Tamiflu and Relenza]. Antivirals, when used by doctors to treat flu, can help reduce the severity of the illness and the recovery time for a patient
- Provide information that the World Health Organization can use to make its recommendations on the best vaccine to use for seasonal flu shots.
The Summary Box below covers the main findings from the current week's FluWatch posting and contains links to specific information, graphs and charts contained in the publication.
Summary of FluWatch Findings for the
Week ending November 14, 2009
- Nationally, the activity level reported this week remained similar to the previous week. While the number of hospitalizations and deaths still increased, the proportion of positive influenza tests was comparable and the national ILI consultation rate and the number of influenza outbreaks reported decreased.
- The Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 strain accounted for nearly 100% of the positive influenza A subtyped specimens this week.
- The intensity of Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 in the population was high with 1,674 hospitalizations, 261 ICU admissions and 84 deaths reported this week. Hospitalized cases occurred in all provinces and territories (P/T) that reported this week while the deaths were from all P/T except MB, PE, YT, NT and NU. From August 30 to November 14, 2009, a total of 3,965 hospitalized cases including 576 cases admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) (14.5%) as well as 142 deaths had been reported. Numbers of new deaths were more than two times higher than last week.
- The number of hospitalizations and deaths reported this week were higher than the overall number of hospitalizations and deaths for the first wave.
- While the proportion of severe cases (ICU admissions and deaths) among all hospitalized cases was lower in previous weeks, the proportion of deaths over all hospitalized (5%) this week is back to what was observed in the first wave.
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