- Published
- 11 April 2024
- Journal article
Excess mortality in Europe coincides with peaks of COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), November 2023 to February 2024
- Authors
-
- Source
- Eurosurveillance
Abstract
Excess mortality has typically been observed during the winter season in Europe, coinciding with epidemics of seasonal influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and other respiratory infections. However, this typical seasonal pattern was largely disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022. Several periods of excess mortality were observed ‘out of season’ and related to consecutive waves of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causing COVID-19, while common respiratory infections were absent because of implementation of non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs). When NPIs were gradually lifted, respiratory infections returned, though displaying some atypical seasonality during 2021 and 2022. In the winter season of 2023/24, excess mortality was again observed in Europe. Here, we present pooled estimates of excess all-cause mortality together with estimates of test positivity of COVID-19, influenza and RSV across 25 countries or subnational areas in the European Mortality Monitoring Network (EuroMOMO).
Cite as
Nørgaard, Sarah K. , Nielsen, J., Nordholm, A., Richter, L., Chalupka, A., Sierra, N., Braeye, T., Athanasiadou, Maria, Lytras, T., Denissov, G., Luomala, O., Fouillet, A., Pontais, I., an der Heiden, M., Zacher, B., Weigel, A., Foppa, I., Gkolfinopoulou, K., Panagoulias, I., Paldy, A., Malnasi, T., Domegan, L., Kelly, E., Rotem, Naama, Rakhlin, O., de'Donato, F., Di Blasi, C., Hoffmann, P., Velez, T., England, K., Calleja, N., van Asten, L., Jongenotter, F., Rodrigues, A., da Silva, S., Klepac, P., Gomez-Barroso, D., Gomez, I., Galanis, I., Farah, A., Weitkunat, R., Fehst, K., Andrews, N., Clare, T., Bradley, D., O'Doherty, M., William, N., Hamilton, M., Søborg, B., Krause, T., Bundle, N. & Vestergaard, L. 2024, 'Excess mortality in Europe coincides with peaks of COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), November 2023 to February 2024', Eurosurveillance, 29(15), article no: 2400178. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.15.2400178