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 2025, Public Health Scotland (PHS) will update the narrative report once a month. The final four-weekly narrative report will be produced on 2 October 2025. Full weekly narrative reporting will return on 9 October 2025. This approach aligns to the pre-pandemic one for respiratory pathogens, which typically follow a seasonal pattern.

Main points

Overall assessment 1 September 2025 to 28 September 2025 (ISO week 36 to week 39):

• Syndromic indicators of respiratory infections from NHS24 call data and in GP practices were at baseline levels in weeks 36-39.
• COVID-19: Signals of COVID-19 infections in the community and in hospitals have begun to decrease over the last four weeks. Test positivity via laboratory surveillance decreased from 11.5% (week 36) to 10.2% (week 39), although levels are still slightly elevated compared to earlier in the season. There was also a statistically significant decrease in CARI COVID-19 test positivity, from 17.2% in the previous four-week reporting period to 13.8% in the most recent four-week reporting period. Hospital admissions due to COVID-19 also decreased by 18%, from 205 (week 36) to 168 (week 39).
• Influenza, RSV and other pathogens: In laboratory surveillance, rhinovirus and Mycoplasma pneumoniae circulated at low activity levels over the past month, while all other pathogens remained at baseline activity level. In CARI surveillance there was a statistically significant increase in test positivity for rhinovirus, from 19.4% in the previous four-week reporting period to 37.5% in the most recent four-week reporting period. No other pathogens showed significant changes.
• All-cause excess mortality for week 36 (the latest week not impacted by reporting delays) remained at baseline overall.

Further information

The next update of the interactive dashboard and narrative report will be 9 October 2025 and mark the return to weekly reporting.

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