Report of the National Influenza Surveillance Scheme, 2019
Communicable Diseases Intelligence·
- DOI
- 10.33321/cdi.2026.50.020
- PMID
- —
- PMCID
- —
- OpenAlex
- —
- Study type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- Australian Centre for Disease Control
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Why this research matters now
The report highlights a high hospital burden from confirmed influenza admissions, alongside moderate severity as indicated by intensive care unit admission proportions, and very low influenza-attributed mortality.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
This report summarises national influenza surveillance activity in Australia for 2019.
Study design
It is a descriptive national surveillance report drawing on multiple data sources that constitute the National Influenza Surveillance Scheme.
Population and setting
The setting is Australia-wide, covering laboratory-confirmed influenza notifications across states and territories in 2019, with age groups ranging from young children to older adults.
Main findings
The 2019 season was characterised by high overall activity, with laboratory-confirmed notifications about 2.8 times the five-year mean. There were unusually high interseasonal notifications, an earlier seasonal peak, and prolonged activity afterwards. Peak timing varied between jurisdictions. Notification rates were highest in children aged 0–4 and 5–9 years, at roughly 2.1 times the overall rate. Of typed notifications, 76.6% were influenza A and 23.2% were influenza B, with influenza A dominating in all age groups and influenza B relatively more common among those aged 0–15 years.
Public-health relevance
The report highlights a high hospital burden from confirmed influenza admissions, alongside moderate severity as indicated by intensive care unit admission proportions, and very low influenza-attributed mortality.
Important limitations
This summary is limited to the supplied single-article abstract and metadata and does not include the full methods or detailed results of the original paper; editorial interpretation should rely on the complete report.
GIDS interpretation
The paper provides publicly discoverable, peer-reviewed national influenza surveillance context for Australia in 2019 and may be useful as background reading; the abstract alone does not establish any link to a live surveillance signal.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 4 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.