Flu Season: WA records highest number of cases ever as paediatrician warns flu not ‘trivial’

WA has endured its worst flu season on record with an average 200 cases a day reported last month. The National Communicable Disease Surveillance Dashboard put the number of laboratory-confirmed influenza cases at 23,315 for the year so far. It’s the third time the number of cases have exceeded 20,000, and the highest number reported since Federal records began in 2001. The previous record was in 2019 when WA recorded 23,248 flu cases. WA had recorded 10,910 cases by the end of June, before a severe flu season sent those numbers sky-high to more than 22,600 by the end of August. In July there were more than 5500 new reports of West Aussies with the flu. The following month 6200 new cases were recorded. It means an average 201 flu cases per day were recorded in August. Over winter, an average 165 cases were recorded each day. The surge comes as no surprise to Chris Blyth, head of the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases at The Kids Research Institute Australia. “This year has been a significant flu season. We’ve seen many children come into hospital with influenza and the complications of influenza, and sadly, we’ve seen influenza-related deaths at PCH this year, as have other hospitals as well,” the Perth Children’s Hospital paediatrician said. Nearly 3500 people have been admitted to hospital for flu this year, with 12 reported deaths. Two of those were children. “Lots of people with flu may be diagnosed with other conditions such as pneumonia . . . so it’s likely those numbers are higher,” Professor Blyth said. “It’s impossible to say how much higher, but we do know that when we have a bad flu season, that impacts on mortality.” Immunisation rates have plummeted since the pandemic with WA among the lowest in the nation. Figures from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance show fewer than one in four WA children aged six-months to four have had a flu jab this year. And while primary school age children are most likely to spread influenza in the community, children aged five to 11 in WA have the lowest vaccination rate with fewer than one in five jabbed. “What is clear to me is our influenza vaccine rates are too low, and every effort we can do to try and improve that rate in the community, we need to do,” Professor Blyth said. “I worry that the community still believes flu to be a trivial illness, and as someone who works on the coalface, it’s not a trivial illness. I see children who get severe flu every single year . . . many of those are preventable. “What I do know is the most effective intervention we have to reduce our risk of flu is getting vaccinated, and that’s why we strongly recommend it, particularly for those who have risk factors for severe influenza.”