The figure below shows the number of ILI cases (in green) found in two “sentinel” networks of general practitioners known as the Australian Sentinel Practices Research Network (ASPREN) and the Victorian Sentinel Practice Influenza Network (VicSPIN). The combination of a low positivity rate and a large number of positive tests means that the total number of tests must have been higher than usual, perhaps a lot higher.Ī potentially more accurate measure of flu intensity comes from Australia’s surveillance of influenza-like illness (a.k.a ILI). The red line in the figure above is the percent of tests that were positive, and with the exception of the two years of Covid-19 (when there was almost no flu at all), this “positivity rate” was actually considerably lower in 2022 than what is normal for Australia. Is there evidence for this more-testing-hypothesis? Yes. Given the presence of Covid-19, it stands to reason that Australian health care providers may have tested for flu more aggressively in 2022 than ever before. As a form of passive surveillance, these data suffer from variations in test frequency, which makes them difficult to interpret. That means that any time a test is performed, the result must be recorded in a registry. Source: Sakamoto H, Rahman M, Nomura S, Okamoto E, Koike S, Yasunaga H et al. Influenza is a nationally notifiable disease in Australia. About 800 million prescriptions were written, and about US 64.2 billion was disbursed by public health insurance for prescribed medicines (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2016a). That is, the more you look for something, the more of it you find. An alternative explanation is that there was simply more testing. However, more flu is only one possible explanation for this fact. World Health Organization Global Influenza Program Laboratory-tested positive influenza cases in Australia, 2011-2022.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |