Influenza virus characterisation report, September 2020

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) periodically publishes influenza characterisation reports, giving an overview of circulating influenza viruses. These reports provide details on the current vaccine strains, summarise the development of the viruses since the last report and closely follow the main developments for the ongoing influenza season.

On 19 October 2020, the ECDC published the tenth virus characterisation period report for the 2019 to 2020 influenza season. As of week 39 of 2020, 164,917 influenza detections across the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region had been reported. Of these, 73% were type A viruses, with A(H1N1)pdm09 prevailing over A(H3N2), and 27% were type B viruses, with 4,480 (98%) of 4,569 ascribed to a lineage being B/Victoria.

Source: ECDC, 19 October 2020