The doctor’s offices are full, the pharmacies heavily frequented. The number of patients in Germany is currently particularly high. This is not only due to the Corona summer wave.
Data and assessments by doctors and pharmacists show that there are an unusually large number of respiratory infections in Germany at this time of year. This is particularly evident in children, but increasingly also in adults.
The Professional Association of Pediatricians (BVKJ) only reports “slightly more infections than at the same time in the years before Corona”. According to the Federal Union of German Pharmacists’ Associations (Abda), pharmacies have recorded a clear increase in colds in recent times. The respiratory tract is particularly affected.
This has consequences not only for the individual, but also for the healthcare system and companies. General practitioner practices and doctors are overwhelmed by the sometimes enormous rush of patients, and employees in companies regularly call in sick.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) estimates the number of current visits to the doctor for acute respiratory diseases at 1.2 million per week. Among adults, there are up to three times more such doctor visits than in the years before the corona pandemic at this time. In addition to increased infections, this could also be due to the fact that people go to the doctor even with mild symptoms because they are more sensitized by the pandemic.
“GP practices have been under a lot of pressure for years. At the moment, however, the number of patients is once again particularly high,” emphasizes the national chairman of the German General Practitioners Association, Ulrich Weigeldt.
Overall, the RKI currently assumes 4.5 million acute respiratory diseases (ARE) in Germany per week (based on the period June 27th to July 3rd). This corresponds to about one illness for every 18.5 inhabitants. In previous years – during and before the corona pandemic – the values were significantly lower. ARE occurs when a patient has a respiratory disease with fever, cough, or sore throat.
In this context, the corona summer wave makes a significant contribution to the number of cases. The RKI recently reported an increase in the seven-day incidence to 702.4. Overall, the number of known infections has risen to over 29.1 million – 7,240 more cases than a week ago.
However, other viruses are also circulating at the moment. In children, these are mainly rhino, parainfluenza and influenza viruses. Infections with the RS virus are also increasingly being recorded. At about the same time last year, an increasing number of children developed RSV.
RSV stands for Respiratory Syncytial Virus. It is a globally distributed pathogen that causes disease of the upper and lower respiratory tract and triggers a wave of illness every year – similar to the flu. Although the pathogen affects people of all ages, it is one of the main causes of respiratory diseases in infants and small children.
Experts see the reason for the generally increasing number of infections in the catch-up effect. Due to the corona measures of the last few months and years, there have been significantly fewer infections. Now that restrictions are increasingly falling, children in particular are catching up on the infections.
The federal press spokesman for the professional association of paediatricians, Jakob Maske, explains, for example, that children in the first kindergarten age go through ten to 15 infections, some of which can last up to four weeks. In the second year, however, the number decreases.
At school, children would then be much less susceptible to viruses. After all, the immune system then got to know several pathogens. The viruses now hit many children in the crèche or daycare center who were not ill in the past year.
The need to catch up on infections is also evident in adults, albeit to a lesser extent. Because we continue to get infected with some cold viruses in later life. This is because immunity does not last very long after infection. As a result of the falling measures, the immune system catches up on the “missed” infections.
