Hospitalisations in Hungary soar, with influenza becoming a serious issue

EDITOR'S NOTE:
There were only two working days on the 52nd week of 2025 (Dec 22-28) and only three on the first week of 2026 (29 Dec-4 Jan), which brought a drop in the number of Hungarians turning to their doctor with acute respiratory infections (ARI), including influenza-like illnesses (ILI).

This relief is both temporary and deceptive. The number of infections has not actually decreased, only fewer people sought medical help due to the holidays. Respiratory infection season tends to peak between the third and eighth weeks of the new year, so an actual drop in infections could be expected in early March at the earliest.

The latest hospitalisation data clearly show that the situation is not as rosy as the mere infection stats would suggest.

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. The ARI numbers have been lower than in the previous three years for five consecutive weeks, but the 49th week brought a change, and by the 51st week the number of ARI reports was higher than on the same week of the previous three seasons. The first week of 2026, however, shows the lowest ARI figure compared to the previous three seasons.

The number of influenza-like illnesses (ILI) was the highest compared to the past three years on the 51st week. As we noted before, the comparability of the end-year data is difficult due to the holiday season and the fact that there are even gaps in the NNGYK reports. Nevertheless, there was a sharp drop reported for the first week of 2026.

The share of ILI in ARI was 19.3%, higher than in the previous three years, having risen for the seventh week in a row.

With regard to the number of ARI patients per 100,000 inhabitants, we were worse off on the 51st week than in any year since 2011/2012. The current figure is not that dramatic, but the peak is still weeks away.

The Chief Medical Officer emphasised a few weeks ago that the new type of influenza A virus had also been identified in Hungary. This may explain why the number of cases exceeded the epidemic threshold so early this year, in December. This level is typically only reached in January.

Based on the available data, it appears that the new virus strain does not cause more severe illness than previous strains. hospitalisation data, however, are a red flag in this respect.

While the total number of samples tested exceeds the 2022/23 figure by the 50th week, it remains below the 2023/24 and 2024/25 figures.

Positivity rates

The coronavirus positivity rate dropped further to 4.3%, which compares with just 0% a year ago, 28.3% two years ago and 10.8% three years ago.

The influenza positivity rate picked up further to 30.4%, as expected. It compares with 33.3% a year ago, 14.1% two years ago and 22.9% three years ago.

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. Going out on a limb, based on the number of infections so far we should expect the RSV positivity rate to remain under 15%. The average of the past three seasons is 4.9%.

Hospitalisations

There were 220 people in hospital with severe acute respiratory infection (SARI), up by 57% from 140 a week ago and also a record high this year,

of whom 16 tested positive for COVID-19 (7.3%), which compares with 11.2% in 2024/25 and 69.1% in 2023/24. A year ago, hospitals admitted exactly the same number of SARI patients on the 1st week (220), while the 2023/24 figure was lower at 177 and the 2022/23 figure a lot higher at 367.

27 of the 167 patients needed intensive of subintensive care, a ratio of 12.3%, up from 11.4% a week ago and the highest percentage this year. There were 26 SARI patients in ICU on the same week a year ago (11.8%) and 20 two years ago (11.3%).

Half of people admitted to hospital with a coronavirus infection were over 60 years old (8 in total), and more than 37% of SARI patients were in this age group (82 in total). However, more than a quarter (27.7%) of SARI patients were under two years old (61 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.

influenza was responsible for more hospitalisations than covid-19 For the third consecutive week (42.3% versus 7.3%, see detailed chart below).

Up to the 51st week, this season was less severe than previous ones in terms of the proportion of people with ARI who ended up in hospital. However, a sharp increase was observed in the 51st week, and the percentage in the first week of 2026 shows that

the situation was not this bad in the previous three seasons.

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, the proportion of influenza infections behind hospitalisations has started to pick up already as expected. 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 plot it on this particular chart, note that the share of coronavirus infection behind hospitalisations hovered between 55% and 74% in the first 14 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.)

Age breakdown

34.7% of people seeking medical help with an acute respiratory infection (ARI) in week 1 were children aged up to 14 (almost 31,000), down from over 115,000 two weeks earlier. More than a quarter (cc 22,400) 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 those aged between 15 and 34 years, accounting for about 5,400 (31.7%) of all patients with influenza-like illness, followed by the 0-14 age group (4,750 or 27.9%).

Hepatitis A

The NNGYK has also published the latest hepatitis A (HAV) infection data for the 52nd week of 2025, which we wrote about in detail here:

Pertussis

2024 saw a dramatic increase in pertussis cases in Hungary, with 1,354 cases reported by the end of the year. The epidemic petered out by the end of the year and the end-2025 cumulated figure was just 261. Over the course of the past two years, there were reports of 1,615 suspected pertussis cases in Hungary.

Cover image (for illustration purposes only): Getty Images