More than a third of hospitalised SARI patients in Hungary are under two years old

Key findings:

• almost half (48.6%) of the samples tested on the 10th week of 2025 showed infection with some kind of influenza virus; up from 47% a week earlier;
• the influenza positivity rate for all samples tested (29%) continues to exceed the falling cumulated Covid positivity rate (7.1%), while the flu rate never took the lead in the 2023/24 season;
• the positivity rate for the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) rose further to 12.7% from 7.6%;
• the number of human metapneumovirus (HMPV) infections reached 118 or 1.6% of all samples tested up to the 10th week, which figures compare with 79 and 1.4% a year earlier;
• the number of people hospitalised with severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) dropped 11% w/w to 322 from 362, which is higher the comparative figures in the 2023/24 (262) and 2022/23 (268) respiratory seasons;
• no one among the SARI patients tested positive for COVID-19, while there were 94 people with influenza infection in hospital (down from 124), which corresponds to 29.2% of all SARI patients; and 79 people were treated in hospital with RSV infection (up from 58 and 24.5% of all SARI patients);
• of the 322 people in hospital with SARI, 119 (37%) were aged two years or younger, an increase over the 9th week (117 or 32.3%), while 101 (31.4%) were aged 60 years and older, down from 133 or 36.7% on the previous week.

Epidemic clearly going away, albeit only slowly

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

There seemed to be a turnaround on the 9th week, and the 10th week data confirmed that the worst of the epidemic is behind us, although the improvement is sluggish. The number of people seeking medical help with acute respiratory infections (ARI) was 291,400, down 11.5% w/w, and the number of patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) fell sharply by 21.4% w/w to 69,100.

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 higher than at this point in the previous two respiratory seasons.

The share of influenza-like illness in ARI was down at 23.7% from 26.7% on the 9th week, exceeding the comparative readings from the past two seasons (16% and 22.8%, respectively), meaning that effectively slightly less 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.

The current situation is worse than either of the previous two respiratory seasons in terms of both ARI and influenza-like illness per 100,000 people.

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 five weeks 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."

Since then, by the 10th week, the ratio edged further up to 0.111%, which is worse than a year ago, but better than in 2022/23. You find more detailed information about the situation in hospitals below.

Positivity rates

A total of 440 samples were tested on the 10th week, and came back COVID-19 positive, while there were four cases a year ago (1.2% positivity rate) and five cases two years ago (4.0%.)

The share of influenza (48.6%) in the tested samples is way above last year's reading (12.3%), but lower than two years ago (52.4%), while that of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) rose further to 12.7%, exceeding the 2023/24 (10.4%) and 2022/23 (2.4%) readings.

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 10th 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 523 positive tests (7.1% of the 7,320 samples tested up to the 10th week), as influenza remains in the lead with 2,123 positive samples by week 10 (29% of all samples), followed by RSV (228), human metapneumovirus (HMPV, 118), rhinovirus (60), parainfluenza (6), adenovirus (5), and bocavirus (4).

Hospitalisations

322 people with severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) were hospitalised on the 10th week of 2025, of whom 34 (or 10.6%) required intensive care. On the 10th week in the previous two respiratory seasons 14.9% and 16.4% of SARI patients were treated in ICUs, respectively.

The number of Hungarians hospitalised with SARI dropped by 11% w/w on the 10th week of 2025, which does not really stand out compared to the previous two respiratory seasons. The fluctuations have been too heavy to draw far-reaching conclusions from the weekly changes alone.

The proportion of SARI patients with influenza has been higher than that of patients with Covid and RSV infection since the 50th week of 2024, although RSV has started to catch up with influenza in this respect, and coronavirus has practically disappeared from the group of hospitalised SARI patients.

The following graphs show that influenza caused more problems this year than in the previous two seasons, while coronavirus did not lead to such a high proportion of hospitalisations and RVS followed largely the same pattern as last year and proved even slightly less severe since week 5. Two years ago, no SARI patient with RSV was hospitalised until the first week of 2023, but their share started off much higher.

In terms of hospitalised RSV patients aged two years or younger, this season started earlier, with a few children admitted already on the 47th week, while the first hospital admissions due to RSV occurred only on the 4th week of 2024 in the previous respiratory season. As regards their share of all RSV patients, the lowest reading was 68.1% this year, while it remained north of 80% up to the 12th week last year.

Their proportion was almost 76% on the 10th week this year, with 60 of the 79 RSV patients aged two years or younger.

Age distribution of hospitalised SARI patients

Of the 322 people in hospital with SARI, 119 (37%) were aged two years or younger, which shows an increase from 117 (32.3%) a week earlier, while 101 (31.4%) were aged 60 years and older, a fall from the 9th week (133, 36.7%).

There were no COVID-19 patients among the hospitalised SARI patients. A year ago, of the 262 people in hospital with SARI, 138 (52.7%) were aged two or younger, while 59 (22.5%) were 60 or older. Also, 3 or 50% of the 6 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 131,000 of people with ARI and nearly 28,000 of people with ILI were in the 0-14 age group on the 10th week of 2025. The former compares with about 119,000 a year earlier, while the latter compares with around 25,500 in the base period.

Suspected whooping cough cases drop

The number of suspected pertussis cases surprisingly dropped on the 9th week of 2025. Based on the figures for the first nine weeks of the year, however, 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 5 suspected cases for the 9th week of 2025, by which time more than 29% of the 130 cases were infants this year. Also, 44.6% of the infections were detected in the 0-14 age group and about half in the 0-19 age group.

Cover image (for illustration purposes only): Getty Images