FW: Australian Influenza Surveillance Report no.13 2011

[Wishart, Michael]

Dear all,

Please see below the summary notes for the Australian Influenza Surveillance Report no. 13 2011 for the period of 2 to 16 September 2011.

Of note:
* Levels of influenza-like illness (ILI) in the community have started to decrease through both sentinel general practitioner surveillance systems and ILI presentations to emergency departments.
* Notifications have continued to be highest in Queensland and South Australia, with New South Wales also still high. Notifications are decreasing across most states and territories, however notifications in the Northern Territory, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia appear to have plateaued.
* During this fortnight there were 1,958 laboratory confirmed notifications of influenza, with Queensland reporting the highest number of notifications, followed by South Australia. Nationally, the majority of virus detections have been pandemic (H1N1) 2009, with co-circulation of influenza B.
* In the Northern Territory this fortnight notifications of influenza A/H3N2 represented 75% of their notifications, and nationally the majority of A/H3N2 notifications are being reported from the Northern Territory and Western Australia. In Tasmania and more recently New South Wales, influenza B continues to be the dominant strain.
* As at 16 September 2011, there have been 22,303 confirmed cases of influenza reported to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) in 2011. Nationally, weekly notifications for this season have peaked. This season’s peak appears to have occurred in the week ending 5 August 2011 with 1,976 influenza notifications, and was above the peak frequency experienced in previous years, except 2009.
* The WHO has reported that influenza activity in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere remains low. Influenza transmission continues to occur in a few countries of the tropical region. In New Zealand, rates of national ILI consultations are currently consistent with baseline activity levels, and influenza type B and A/H3N2 are currently the predominant strains circulating.

The report will shortly be available on the web at the following address:
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-surveil-ozflu-flucurr.htm

If you have any questions, comments or feedback please reply to flu@health.gov.au

Kind regards,

Influenza Surveillance Team
| Vaccine Preventable Diseases Surveillance | Health Protection & Surveillance Branch | Office of Health Protection | Department of Health and Ageing |
Please note that the Influenza Surveillance Team, of the Vaccine Preventable Diseases Surveillance Section has a group e-mail address which is flu@health.gov.au. While you can still email individual members of the team, this email address will ensure prompt responses and will avoid delays when individual staff members are absent.

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