Economy 6 March 2025, 6:55pm

Hospitalisations rise in Hungary as respiratory season winds down at a snail's pace

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After a promising decline in the 6th week of 2025, the number of people seeking medical help for respiratory infections, including influenza-like illness, has increased for two weeks in a row before it finally dropped some on the 9th week, data published by the National Centre for Public Health and Pharmacy (NNGYK) showed on Thursday. The number of influenza-like illnesses per 100,000 inhabitants was never higher than in week 9 in the last 13 respiratory seasons. While the number of infections shows a modest decline, the number of Hungarians treated in hospitals with severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) has grown 17.5% week-on-week.

Key findings:

Almost half (47%) of the samples tested on the 9th week of 2025 showed infection with some kind of influenza virus; up from 39% a week earlier;
the influenza positivity rate for all samples tested (27.7%) continues to exceed the falling cumulated Covid positivity rate (7.6%), while the flu rate never took the lead in the 2023/24 season;
the coronavirus positivity rate was practically zero (0.2%, down from 0.6%), while
the RSV positivity rate rose further to 7.6% from 5.6%;
the number of human metapneumovirus (HMPV) infections reached 93 or 1.4% of all samples tested, which figures compare with 60 and 1.1% a year earlier;
the number of people hospitalised with severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) rose 17.5% w/w to 362 from 308, which is higher the comparative figures in the 2023/24 (284) and 2022/23 (329) respiratory seasons;
0.6% of those hospitalised tested positive for COVID-19, while there were 124 people with influenza infection in hospital, which corresponds to 34.3% of all SARI patients; and 58 people were treated in hospital with RSV infection (16% of all SARI patients);
of the 362 people in hospital with SARI, 117 (32.3%) were aged two years or younger, up in numbers but down in share from the 8th week (113 or 36.7%), while 133 (36.7%) were aged 60 years and older, up sharply from 89 or 28.9% on the previous week.

Epidemic may have started to peter out at last

The lower number of GP visits with respiratory infections and the epidemiological pattern of previous respiratory seasons suggested three weeks ago that the peak might have been reached. We were wrong, as the data for the following two weeks showed.

There seems to be a turnaround, i.e. the peak might have been reached already, although the number of people that sought medical help with acute respiratory infections (ARI) on the 9th week was exactly the same (329,400) as a week earlier. This is the second time this year when the figures on two consecutive weeks match exactly (it first occurred on the 48th and 49th weeks of 2024). Meanwhile, patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) dropped 1.7% w/w to 87,900.

The respiratory season (often and erroneously referred to as 'flu season') generally peaks between the 4th and the 9th week of the year, so this year is not an outlier.

A short-term comparison (for the last three seasons of respiratory illnesses) shows that the number of patients with ARI, including those with ILI was much higher than at this point in the previous two respiratory seasons.

The share of influenza-like illness in ARI was down at 26.7% from 27.1% on the 8th week, exceeding the comparative readings from the past two seasons (17.7% and 22.2%, respectively), meaning that effectively more than a quarter of ARI patients showed symptoms of influenza.

We also have data for ARIs and flu-like symptoms per 100,000 inhabitants, although a long-term data series is available only for the latter.

in terms ari is worse and in terms of people with Influenza-like illness per 100,000 people, the situation is currently way worse than in either of the previous two respiratory seasons.

In the graph below, you can compare the flu situation with the previous 13 respiratory seasons and see that the situation has not been as bad as it is now.

The NNGYK reassured us in response to our enquiries a month ago that they "keep a close eye on the rate of serious illness", and draw the conclusion that with 0.09% of all patients requiring hospitalisation, "the virus currently circulating is not causing more severe illness than we are used to."

On the 9th week, the ratio edged further up to 0.094%, but it is not worse than either one or two years ago. You find more detailed information about the situation in hospitals below.

Positivity rates

A total of 460 samples were tested on the 9th week, with only 1 coming back COVID-19 positive. The 0.2% positivity rate compares with 1.2% (4 cases) a year ago and 7.3% (11 cases) two years ago.

The share of influenza (47%) in the tested samples is way above last year's reading (24.1%), but largely the same as two years ago (46%), while that of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) remains lower at 7.6% than in 2023/24 (9.9%) but higher than in 2022/23 (2.0%).

The following graph may seem a bit fuzzy at first but at least it shows a side-by side comparison of the weekly positivity rates for influenza (green), Covid (orange), and RSV (blue) for the past three respiratory seasons up to the 9th week. It is evident how the flu positivity rate stood out this year, up to the 8th week that is, whether we compare it to the corresponding rates in the previous two years or to the Covid and RSV positivity rates.

As regards the individual positivity rates in all the samples, the 'switch' never took place in the 2023/24 respiratory season (i.e. the total number of positive Covid tests in all samples tested remained higher than the number of positive flu tests) in and occurred by the end of the 3rd week in the 2022/23 season.

SARS-CoV-2 has not been the main pathogen in samples since Week 4 this year, with 521 positive tests (7.6% of the 6,880 samples tested up to the 9th week), as influenza remains in the lead with 1,909 positive samples by week 9 (27.8% of all samples), followed by RSV (172), human metapneumovirus (HMPV, 93), rhinovirus (55), parainfluenza (6), adenovirus (5), and bocavirus (4).

Hospitalisations

362 people with severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) were hospitalised on the 9th week of 2025, of whom 32 (or 8.8%) required intensive care. On the 9th week in the previous two respiratory seasons 10.9% and 19.1% of SARI patients were treated in ICUs, respectively.

The number of Hungarians hospitalised with SARI grew by 17.5% w/w on the 9th week of 2025, which does stand out compared to the previous two respiratory seasons, but then the epidemic was already winding down. The fluctuations have been too heavy to draw far-reaching conclusions from the weekly changes alone.

Further breakdown shows that 2 people (1.6% of SARI patients) were hospitalised with SARS-CoV-2 infection, way fewer than either a year ago (10, 3.5%) or two years ago (55, 16.7%).

the situation is much worse on the influenza front. A total of 124 people in hospital with SARI tested positive for influenza, which corresponds to 34.3% of all SARI patients.

This compares with 64 influenza patients (22.5% of all SARI patients) in hospital on the 9th week of 2024 and 75 (22.8%) on the same week of 2023.

The share of RSV patients rose to 16% (58) from 15.3% (47), which compares with 27.8% (79) a year earlier and 14% (46) two years earlier.

Age distribution of hospitalised SARI patients

Of the 362 people in hospital with SARI, 117 (32.3%) were aged two years or younger, which shows an increase from 113 (36.7%) a week earlier, while 133 (36.7%) were aged 60 years and older, a sharp increase from the 8th week (89, 28.9%).

None of the two COVID-19 patients were over 60 years of age (they were actually not even two years old). A year ago, of the 284 people in hospital with SARI, 132 (46.6%) were aged two or younger, while 64 (22.5%) were 60 or older. Also, 6 or 60% of the 10 COVID-19 patients were over 60 years of age.

The age breakdown of people seeking medical help with ARI and flu-like symptoms are shown below.

The majority of ARI patients belonged in the 0-14 age group throughout the 'flu season' last year (and so far this year too), while the share of people going to the doctor with flu-like symptoms was the highest in the 15-34 age group up to the 2nd week of last year when the youngest were in majority for nine weeks and then it was back and forth between the 13th and 20th week. You fund a heat map for the previous season in one of our previous articles here.

The number and share of children up to 14 years of age remains higher among people with influenza-like illness than the number and share of those in the 15-34 age group, for the sixth week in a row, after a brief switch on the first two weeks of 2025.

some 153,000 of people with ARI and over 38,000 of people with ILI were in the 0-14 age group on the 8th week of 2025. The former compares with about 127,000 a year earlier, while the latter compares with fewer than 19,000 in the base period.

Whooping cough stays with us too

The number of suspected pertussis cases does not seem to be dropping, either. Based on the figures for the first seven weeks of the year, it looks likely that 2025 will bring another record, unless a dramatic improvement occurs along the way.

The number of suspected whooping cough cases closed at an absolute record of 1,354 cases in 2024. Authorities reported 26 suspected cases for the 8th week of 2025, by which time nearly 29% of the 125 cases were infants this year. Also, about 43.2% of the infections were detected in the 0-14 age group and about half in the 0-19 age group.