‘2025 could easily be another bad year’: Infections already spiking in Qld

After a cocktail of bacterial and viral illnesses ran riot in Queensland during last year’s traditional flu season, the state government has reinstated its free vaccine program.

And with infections already running high this year, doctors say it’s vital that people take precautions – including helping young Queenslanders who missed the routine exposures during the pandemic that might have boosted their immune systems.

Brisbane mother-of-three Amelia said her family had a “blessed” winter in 2023, given her son Lachlan’s susceptibility to illness.

Brisbane mother Amelia and her young family. Two of her children were hospitalised with influenza, while she herself was also battling an infection.

But last year, two of her children were admitted to two different hospitals – amid a bed shortage – while she was fighting off the flu herself.

“I got sick, but nowhere near as sick as the kids … thankfully, I was still functioning,” she said.

Amelia said flu season had never been easy for her family because of six-year-old Lachlan’s lung conditions – a deformity of the windpipe and post-inflammatory lung scarring from infections during his infancy – but last year, seven-year-old Willow also needed treatment.

“Willow kept going more and more downhill,” Amelia said.

“She had all the [regular] symptoms, plus she had vomiting, and I couldn’t wake her up at periods – there were times when I was shaking her and I could not wake her up … it was pretty terrifying,” she said.

This year, the number of flu cases recorded by Queensland Health in the Metro North area is 3.1 times higher than average, and in Metro South 2.8 times higher.

Dr Krispin Hajkowicz, an infectious diseases physician at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, said 2024 was “particularly bad” for COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, and pertussis (whooping cough).

“Some respiratory illnesses are reasonably predictably seasonal, like influenza, [while] some have got really thrown out of whack because of COVID-19, so we’re getting spikes all over the place,” he said.

“With COVID-19 itself, it may at some point settle into a seasonal pattern, but it certainly hasn’t done that yet, it’s been spiking unpredictably for the last couple of years.

“The way it [usually] works – and this happened last year – is that we see an RSV spike earlier in the season in autumn, then we get flu in winter, and other viruses like human metapneumovirus in spring.”

Human metapneumovirus (or HMPV) is closely related to RSV. It is the fifth-most common disease found in patients testing positive for respiratory illnesses at GPs.

According to the federal Department of Health, about one-third of cases last year were rhinovirus (the common cold), making it the most common disease.

That was followed by the flu, and COVID. RSV – the fourth-most common disease – accounted for 8.1 per cent of cases, while HMPV made up 7.8 per cent.

Infectious disease specialist Dr Paul Griffin said several infections including mycoplasma pneumoniae (walking pneumonia) and pneumococcal also spiked in 2024.

“We saw record-breaking numbers of mycoplasma and whooping cough, we saw two big waves of COVID, an at least moderate influenza season and record-breaking numbers of invasive pneumococcal infection as well – that can’t be forgotten,” Griffin said.

“There’s no one simple explanation for all of that.”

Hajkowicz and Griffin agreed people became less vigilant after pandemic restrictions dropped, but said that wasn’t the only factor behind spiking infection rates.

“The normal respiratory virus transmission in the community obviously stopped for a couple of years, [so] some babies never got exposed to these pathogens at all, and the rest of us had a pause in regular immunity,” Hajkowicz said.

“We’ve been a much more susceptible community for the last couple of years, and that’s why the numbers were so high – it’s not clear to me that we’re actually out of that yet.

“I think that 2025 could easily be another bad year for respiratory pathogen infection.”

Queensland Health reports cases weekly. According to the latest data, the number of whooping cough infections so far this year in the Metro South area is eight times higher than average, and 6.4 times higher in Metro North. Cases of invasive pneumococcal are 1.3 times and 1.8 times higher, respectively, in addition to the early high number of flu cases.

With the state government’s free flu vaccine rollout starting on Saturday,

Griffin said better and broader uptake was vital.

“We’ve seen very poor uptake in recent times of COVID vaccines, and we’ve seen a decline in whooping cough vaccination as well,” he said.

Amelia said her six-year-old son Lachlan was hospitalised for almost a week in July last year when he contracted influenza A.

“There are always factors to do with these organisms themselves that we don’t necessarily control … but the two easiest modifiable factors include vaccination and [preventative measures].”

Amelia vaccinated her family in May and was disappointed they still contracted the flu. She has already booked them in this year.

“It could have been worse last year if we didn’t get the flu jab,” she said.

Griffin reiterated that vaccines guarded against infections like flu, walking pneumonia and whooping cough, which could be fatal for infants.

“We particularly want people who are around infants one year and less to make sure they’re up-to-date with all these COVID, RSV, influenza, and whooping cough vaccines,” he said.

“It’s more about reducing the burden in those really high-risk groups that we see get RSV [and other respiratory diseases] and get really sick and end up in hospital and potentially not survive.”

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