Viral respiratory diseases (including influenza and COVID-19) in Scotland surveillance report

About this release

Public Health Scotland (PHS) continue to consider timely ways to provide the public with official statistics. Between April and October 2024, Public Health Scotland (PHS) will update the narrative report once a month. The narrative report will be produced on 11 July 2024, 8 August 2024 and 5 September 2024. This approach aligns to the pre-pandemic one for respiratory pathogens, which typically follow a seasonal pattern. However, amid rising COVID-19 trends, the interactive dashboard updates will move from a once-a-month to a weekly publication. The interactive dashboard will be updated on 11 July 2024, 18 July 2024, 25 July, 1 August and 8 August. If appropriate, the dashboard will then revert to monthly updates. 

PHS will continue to monitor COVID-19 and other respiratory infection levels and reinstate the weekly narrative report before September 2024 if necessary.

Main points

Overall assessment for reporting period 10 June 2024 to 7 July 2024 (ISO weeks 24 - 27):

• Respiratory symptoms in the community measured via calls to NHS24 and attendance at GP consultations for influenza-like-illness (GP ILI) remained at Baseline activity level across the four-week reporting period.
• In the CARI community surveillance system, rhinovirus had the highest proportion of positive samples (especially for children ages 0-4), followed by SARS-CoV-2 (especially for adults 75 years and older) and parainfluenza. Swab positivity for SARS-CoV-2 increased over the period, while it decreased for rhinovirus and remained stable for parainfluenza. All other pathogens remained relatively stable.
• Mycoplasma pneumoniae decreased from High and Extraordinary activity levels in the first two weeks of the reporting period to Moderate activity level in the latest two weeks, while all other pathogens, including influenza, were at Baseline or Low activity level. There was a trend of increasing numbers of positive COVID-19 cases reported per week throughout the four-week period (4,426 reported in total)
• In the most recent week, there were 482 emergency hospital admissions with a laboratory-confirmed diagnosis of influenza, RSV, or COVID-19. This was similar to last week, but an increase compared to the two previous weeks (485 in week 26, 458 in week 25, and 334 in week 24). The highest proportion of these were recorded for COVID-19 which have increased during the reporting period, with 462 people admitted in week 26. Numbers have been increasing since week 16, although provisional data for week 27 indicates that this figure may be stabilising, with 459 admissions.
• All-cause excess mortality for week 24 (week ending 16 June 2024, the latest week not impacted by reporting delays) remained at Baseline activity level overall and for all age groups.

Background

Tracking infectious respiratory diseases, including COVID-19 and influenza, is essential, especially in the winter when the disease burden can be highest. In Scotland, respiratory infection and associated morbidity are monitored using enhanced surveillance. This approach combines data from microbiological sampling and laboratory test results from community and hospital settings with data from syndromic surveillance of NHS 24 calls, primary care consultations for respiratory symptoms, hospital (including intensive care) admissions and other settings.

The intelligence generated from surveillance of laboratory, syndromic and community settings provide a comprehensive picture of current respiratory illness in Scotland. The data presented in this report provide a comprehensive and timely epidemiological picture that is essential for understanding transmission of infection and supporting patient care and NHS service planning and policy.

Seasonality patterns / seasonal variations

Respiratory illnesses are associated with seasonal increase in the autumn and winter. Seasonality patterns for both influenza viruses and non-influenza respiratory pathogens have been established through many years of surveillance data. Most influenza and non-influenza pathogens circulate in the autumn and winter in Scotland, although some are known to circulate in the spring and summer. Notably, COVID-19 transmission has been occurring in waves throughout the year as observed from surveillance data since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 18 July 2024.

Find out more

Previous Publications

Versions of the Weekly national respiratory report publication released before 30 November 2022 may be found on the Public Health Scotland website.

Versions of the COVID-19 weekly statistical report publication released before 30 November 2022 may be found on the Public Health Scotland website.

Open data

Open data from this publication is available from the following weblinks:

• Viral respiratory diseases Open Data platform
• Flu and COVID vaccination uptake Open Data platform

Further data

• The COVID-19 Vaccine Wastage datafile was updated on 18 April 2024 to include the most recent information.
• The COVID-19 in Adult Care Homes in Scotland datafile was updated on 27 July 2023 to include more recent information.
• 28 September 2022 COVID-19 statistical report publication contains information on COVID-19 infection and vaccination in pregnancy in Scotland.
• 2 March 2022 COVID-19 statistical report publication contains information on Highest Risk (shielding patients list)
• 7 November 2023 Community Acute Respiratory Infection (CARI) surveillance in primary care contains information on flu Vaccine effectiveness in community settings.
• 25 May 2023 Interim 2022/23 influenza vaccine effectiveness: six European studies, October 2022 to January 2023, contains information on flu Vaccine effectiveness in hospital settings.
• 13 January 2024 Estimated number of lives directly saved by COVID-19 vaccination programs in the WHO European Region, December 2020 to March 2023, contains information on lives saved due to COVID-19 vaccination