Flu cases double in a week and fill hospitals across Spain
Unions claim patients are piled on stretchers in hospital corridors due to staff shortages
The flu has been on the rise for four weeks now in Spain with cases almost doubling in the last seven days, even though the virus still hasn’t reached its peak.
It arrived much later than in previous seasons right on time to coincide with a huge upsurge in stomach bugs, catching the health services completely off-guard. According to the Civil Servants Trade Union (CSIF), staff shortages in hospitals across the country are resulting in “stretchers in the corridors”, “double shifts” and “desperation of patients due to the hours of waiting.”
The latest available data, relating to the week of January 6 to 12, show that the incidence rate of influenza continued to rise after Christmas and now stands at 118.8 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, almost double the 64 of the previous week.
And while this figure falls shy of the 157.7 cases that were reported during the same period last year, more patients are requiring medical attention, putting the health services under severe pressure.
Today, the rate of hospitalisation for flu is estimated at 6.3 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 5 last week. In terms of severity, since the start of this 2024-2025 season, which began at the end of September last year, 25.8% of hospitalised patients have developed pneumonia, 6.5% had to be admitted to intensive care and 3.4% have died.
“Emergency services in hospitals and health centres across Spain continue to be overwhelmed and are getting worse. The flu is making a situation that is already overwhelmed by a lack of staff worse by the day, the vice-president of CSIF, Sacramento Rodríguez, said this week.
Covid may have taken a back seat for the moment, but the coronavirus infection rate is also on the rise. Covid increased from 4.9 cases per 100,000 inhabitants the previous week to the current 6.4, while the rate of bronchitis and bronchiolitis is falling slightly, from 75.6 to 64.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
According to the experts, the current flu epidemic should peak in two or three weeks before starting to decline.
Image: Freepik
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