December 11, 2025

expert reaction to the latest NHS data on the current flu season

Scientists comment on the latest NHS data on the current flu season. 

Dr Vanessa Tobert, Infectious Diseases Registrar, and Clinical Research Fellow, Oxford Population Health, University of Oxford said:

“The latest influenza statistics indicate that this flu season is very serious, with hospital admissions this week nearly double the rate last week and still rising. Fortunately, although the dominant circulating strain is antigenically diverse to that of the vaccine, the latest data show that vaccination is still providing a good level of protection, preventing hospital attendance at the same rate we would expect in any other year.

“Flu remains a serious illness that causes hospitalisation and death each year. Although this disease has been around for a very long time, we still don’t have good evidence to guide treatment. This season highlights the importance of clinical research; we are currently running the RECOVERY global clinical trial to provide definitive evidence of the best possible treatment for people hospitalised with flu.”

Dr Elizabeth Whittaker, Department of Infectious Disease, Imperial College London, said:

“The flu statistics match what we are seeing in the emergency department and wards in our hospitals, it is very busy. This follows what was seen in Australia in their winter, and importantly, they saw lots of cases in children. The vaccine is a good match this year for protection, so now is the time for pregnant women and those children who missed their dose in school to get one to protect themselves for Christmas.

“The flu vaccine is free and recommended for all children aged between 2 to 17. As always, if a fever in a child doesn’t settle after 5 days, or settles and starts again, the advice is to contact NHS 111 or seek advice from a GP.”

Dr Lindsay Broadbent, Lecturer in Virology, University of Surrey, said:

“Influenza viruses that infect humans are divided into two ‘types’ A and B. Most of the cases we are currently seeing belong to Influenza A, which is further divided into subtypes which are determined by two of the viral proteins haemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). This is where we get the naming of influenza A viruses such as H1N1 or H3N2. Our influenza season is being dominated by H3N2, which is further categorised into ‘clades’ and ‘subclades’ based on the genetic sequence of the virus. The H3N2 virus we are seeing mostly belong to subclade K.

This information is important, because mutations in certain viral genes may give us information on how likely antiviral treatments are to work or if the vaccine efficacy may be impacted.

The scale and severity of any influenza season result from several driving factors including how the virus has mutated or ‘drifted’ over time, vaccine efficacy and vaccine uptake, and the timing of the beginning of the flu season. It has been a few years since H3N2 was the dominant circulating strain in the UK, the last time was the 2021-2022 flu season. It is possible this has led to waning immunity in the community. We have also seen a very early start to the flu season, meaning a lot of people eligible for the vaccine, and most vulnerable to severe disease, may not yet have been vaccinated (and the vaccine takes about 2 weeks to be effective).

The RSV season is also picking up, we are seeing an increase in RSV cases. A respiratory virus that is particularly dangerous for young babies but can also cause severe disease in older adults or those with underlying conditions such as asthma or COPD.

The increase in both influenza and RSV is worrying for the NHS, that will be under pressure to meet demand.”

Declared interests:

Dr Vanessa Tobert: “Research funding provided by Flu Lab”

Dr Lindsay Broadbent: “I receive funding from Merck and Verona Pharma.”

For all other experts, no reply to our request for DOIs was received.