Like our regular Australian Respiratory Surveillance Reports, the annual report covers the surveillance indicators in the Australian National Surveillance Plan for COVID-19, Influenza and RSV.
It draws information from multiple surveillance systems to provide a national overview of:
- the distribution of acute respiratory illness activity in the community
- the severity of disease
- the populations most at risk for severe disease
- the impact of acute respiratory illness activity on the health system and community.
These reports help improve our understanding of how acute respiratory infections and prevention activities are affecting different populations across Australia.
This information will be used to improve the public health of Australians in multiple ways, including informing:
- winter preparedness
- public health decisions and communication strategies, such as vaccination campaigns and other preventive measures
- planning for future vaccination strategies.
The National Respiratory Infections Surveillance Committee (NRISC) will also use insights from the annual reports to drive future directions and improvements to acute respiratory infection surveillance and reporting in Australia.
The new annual reports replace the existing annual influenza surveillance reports.
See the 2024 Annual Australian Respiratory Surveillance Report.