Economy 11 December 2025, 1:40pm

Share of influenza-related hospitalisations matches that of Covid infections in Hungary

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Based on reports from doctors participating in the surveillance service, an estimated 215,600 people visited a doctor with symptoms of an acute respiratory infection during the 49th week of 2025 (1–7 December), representing a 2.5% increase compared to the 48th week. Of these, 29,800 had influenza-like symptoms, representing a 13.3% increase on the previous week. Since 2011, only in 2023/24 has the number of people with influenza-like illness (ILI) per 100,000 people been higher, and not by much. For the first time in the current season, the proportion of people hospitalised with influenza infection matched the proportion hospitalised with a coronavirus infection.

As regards the estimated number of Hungarians seeking medical help with acute respiraotry infection, the current respiratory season started worse than in the previous years, but the ARI numbers have been lower than in the previous three years for the fifth consecutive week now. However, the difference compared to a year ago was merely 900 people.

Meanwhile, the number of influenza-like illness (ILI) is currently the second highest compared to the past three years.

The share of ILI in ARI was 13.8%, higher than in the previous three years, marking an increase from 12.5% a week ago.

With regard to the number of ARI patients per 100,000 inhabitants, we were better off than in 2022/23 and 2023/24, but slightly worse off than a year ago. In fact, the current one is the second highest figure since 2011/2012.

While the total number of samples tested exceeds the 2022/23 figure by the 49th week, it remains below the 2023/24 and 2024/25 figures.

The Covid-19 positivity rate came in at 17.2% when considering all positive tests (34) of the samples submitted by sentinel GPs (198) and at 16% when calculating with all positive tests (36) in all of the samples (i.e. those submitted by sentinel hospitals and also traditional diagnostic samples, 225 in total).

The coronavirus positivity rate picked up after dropping for three weeks straight. On the 49th week it was at 16%, which compares with 8.1% a year ago, 41.3% two years ago and 15.2% three years ago.

The influenza positivity rate picked up further to 9.3%, as expected. It is already higher than in any of the previous three seasons.

The first time samples showed the presence of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) was on the 46th week and although the positivity rate remains low, it's worth pointing out that it peaked around 24% at the end of 2022, early 2023. However, the patterns of the last three seasons have provided very little useful information for making forecasts.

Hospitalisations

There were 91 people in hospital with severe acute respiratory infection (SARI), almost the same as a week ago (90), of whom 13 tested positive for COVID-19 (14.3%), which compares with 18.8% in 2024/25 and 72.2% in 2023/24, when hospitals admitted more SARI patients on the 49th week, 112 and 252, respectively.

Eleven of the 91 patients needed intensive of subintensive care, a ratio of 12.1%, which marks an increase from 10.0% on the 48th week, and compares with 12 in the same week of 2024 and 27 in 2023 (both with a ratio of 10.7%).

More than 60% of people admitted to hospital with a coronavirus infection were over 60 years old (8 in total), and more than 45% of SARI patients were in this age group (41 in total). Less than a fifth (18.7% of SARI patients were under two years old (17 in total).

The National Centre for Public Health and Pharmacy (NNGYK) also had some key data published since the official end of the previous respiratory season on the 20th week, which show a general increase in the number of hospitalsed SARI patients since the 35th week, except for a surprise drop on the 42nd and 45th week.

For the first time this season, we also find that SARS-CoV-2 and influenza are equally responsible for hospitalisations (14.3%, see detailed chart below).

So far, this season is less serious than the previous ones when it comes to how many of all people with ARI end up in hospital.

The patterns of the previous years suggest that the ratio of coronavirus infections in hospitalisations should keep dropping and get close to 0-10% by the 5th or 6th week of next year. In parallel with this, influenza infections behind hospitalisations should start to pick up before the end of the year or early 2026. And then there's the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) to consider.

This is how the pathogens 'swapped places' as the main reason behind hospitalisations last year, although there's absolutely no guarantee that we'll see the same trajectories this year.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of hospitalisations by type of infection for the current and past respiratory infection seasons. Although we have chosen not to put it on this particular chart, note that the share of coronavirus infection behind hospitalisations hovered between 65% and 74% in the first ten weeks of the 2023/24 season.

And this is how they have been changed in the current and past three seasons of respiratory infections. (Note that the the RSV was not reported to be behind any hospitalisation until the 47th week in 2024 and the 49th week in 2023, and that's why the orange line remains at 0% on that graph.)

Age breakdown

About 47% of people seeking medical help with an acute respiratory infection (ARI) in week 49 were children aged up to 14 (cc. 101,000), down from around 107,000 a week earlier. More than a quarter (56,500) were aged 15–34.

The graphs below show a breakdown of ARI patients by age group for this year and the previous two seasons.

When it comes to ILI, the most affected age group was people aged 15-34, accounting for 10,200 (34.2%) of all patients with influenza-like illness, followed by the 0-14 age group (8,900 or 30%).