In the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, influenza activity continues to decrease in the month of June in many countries reporting data to FluNet and EMFLU, namely, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates.
In July 2019, the percentage of tested cases for influenza in EMR is 86.3% out of 4140 enrolled cases, 10.5% of the tested cases is positive and 89.5% is negative.
Figure 1: Influenza geographic spread by type and subtypes, July 2019
Influenza activity by sub-type
• In July 2019, no new cases of human influenza A(H5N1) were reported in Egypt.
• In the northern Africa influenza transmission zone, Egypt continued reporting low influenza activity with influenza B viruses being predominated while Morocco and Tunisia reported no activity.
• In the western Asia influenza transmission zone, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait continued reporting co-circulation of influenza types A and B with influenza A(H3N2) virus predominating in Qatar. Lebanon, reported sporadic circulation of A(H1N1)pdm09 while Iraq, Jordan , oPt, Syria reported no activity.
• In southern Asia transmission zone, Afghanistan and Iran reported sporadic influenza B viruses while Pakistan reported no activity.
Figure 2: Circulating influenza viruses by subtype
Figure 3: Circulating influenza viruses in the EMR by subtype, July 2019
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