The burden of influenza in the United States can vary from year to year depending on which viruses are circulating, how many people receive an influenza vaccination, and how effective the vaccination is in that particular year. During the 2023-2024 flu season, around 28,000 people lost their lives to the disease. Although most people recover from influenza without needing medical care, the disease can be deadly among young children, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems or chronic illnesses. Deaths due to influenza Even though most people recover from influenza without medical care, influenza and pneumonia can be deadly, especially for older people and those with certain preexisting conditions. Influenza is a common cause of pneumonia and although most cases of influenza do not develop into pneumonia, those that do are often more severe and more deadly. Deaths due to influenza are most common among the elderly, with a mortality rate of around 32 per 100,000 population during the 2023-2024 flu season. In comparison, the mortality rate for those aged 50 to 64 years was 9.1 per 100,000 population. Flu vaccinations The most effective way to prevent influenza is to receive an annual influenza vaccination. These vaccines have proven to be safe and are usually cheap and easily accessible. Nevertheless, every year a large share of the population in the United States still fails to get vaccinated against influenza. For example, in the 2022-2023 flu season, only 35 percent of those aged 18 to 49 years received a flu vaccination. Unsurprisingly, children and the elderly are the most likely to get vaccinated. It is estimated that during the 2022-2023 flu season, vaccinations prevented over 929 thousand influenza cases among children aged 6 months to 4 years.

The mortality rate from influenza in the United States is by far highest among those aged 65 years and older. During the 2023-2024 flu season, the mortality rate from influenza for this age group was around 32.1 per 100,000 population. The burden of influenza The impact of influenza in the U.S. varies from season to season, but in the 2023-2024 flu season, there were an estimated 40 million cases. These cases resulted in around 470,000 hospitalizations. Although most people recover from influenza without requiring medical treatment, the disease can be deadly for young children, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems or chronic illnesses. During the 2023-2024 flu season, around 28,000 people in the U.S. lost their lives due to influenza. Impact of vaccinations The most effective way to prevent influenza is to receive an annual vaccination at the beginning of flu season. Flu vaccines are safe and can greatly reduce the burden of the disease. During the 2022-2023 flu season, vaccinations prevented around 2,479 deaths among those aged 65 years and older. Although flu vaccines are usually cheap and easily accessible, every year a large share of the population in the U.S. still does not get vaccinated. For example, during the 2022-2023 flu season, only about 35 percent of those aged 18 to 49 years received a flu vaccination.

Australia Influenza Mortality jumped by 8% in 2019, from a year earlier.

Over 12 million people in the United States died from all causes between the beginning of January 2020 and August 21, 2023. Over 1.1 million of those deaths were with confirmed or presumed COVID-19.

Vaccine rollout in the United States Finding a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine was an urgent health priority since the very start of the pandemic. In the United States, the first two vaccines were authorized and recommended for use in December 2020. One has been developed by Massachusetts-based biotech company Moderna, and the number of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines administered in the U.S. was over 250 million. Moderna has also said that its vaccine is effective against the coronavirus variants first identified in the UK and South Africa.

Influenza, also called the flu, is one of the most infectious diseases worldwide. Its symptoms range from mild to severe, and include sore throat, cough, runny nose, fever, headache, and muscle pain, but can also cause severe illness and death among high-risk populations such as the elderly and children. During the 2023-2024 flu season, there were 40 million cases of influenza in the United States. Influenza deaths Although influenza does not require medical attention for most people, it can be deadly, and causes thousands of deaths every year. The impact of influenza varies from year to year. The number of influenza deaths during the 2023-2024 flu season was 27,965. The vast majority of deaths attributed to influenza during the 2023-2024 flu season occurred among those aged 65 years and older. Vaccination An annual influenza vaccination remains the most effective way of preventing influenza. During the 2022-2023 flu season, influenza vaccinations prevented an estimated 2,479 deaths among U.S. adults aged 65 years and older. Although, flu vaccinations are accessible and cheap, a large share of the United States population still fails to get vaccinated every year. In 2022-2023, only 35 percent of those aged 18 to 49 years received a flu vaccination, much lower compared to children and the elderly.

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The problem

Influenza virus has a devastating societal impact, causing up to 650,000 deaths every year worldwide. Specifically, vulnerable are children and elderly. It is estimated that 1 in 1000 children and elderly every year are hospitalized due to influenza infection. Vaccination can prevent influenza-like illnesses, and thus lower the risk of the virus outbreak. However, currently available vaccines do not always provide protection, even among otherwise-healthy people, leading to serious pandemics. Development of better vaccines depends on our understanding why current vaccines work in some individuals, while fail in others.

About dataset

The FluPRINT is the name of a unified database for a large-scale study exploring novel cellular and molecular underpinnings of successful immunity to influenza vaccines. It contains information on more than 3,000 parameters measured using mass cytometry, flow cytometry, phosphorylation-specific cytometry (phospho-flow), multiplex ELISA, clinical lab tests (hormones and complete blood count), serological profiling with hemagglutination inhibition assay, and virological tests. The dataset represents fully integrated and normalized immunology measurements from 747 individuals from eight clinical studies conducted between 2007 to 2015 at the Human Immune Monitoring Center of Stanford University. The dataset represents a unique source in terms of value and scale, which will broaden our understanding of influenza immunity.

Additional info: https://zenodo.org/record/3222451#.XOb7MaR7lPY

Citation

Tomic A, Tomic I, Dekker CL, Maecker HT and Davis MM. The FluPRINT dataset, a multidimensional analysis of the influenza vaccine imprint on the immune system. Sci Data, doi: 10.1038/s41597-019-0213-4, 2019. 

BackgroundInfluenza infection causes a huge burden every year, affecting approximately 8% of adults and approximately 25% of children and resulting in approximately 400,000 respiratory deaths worldwide. However, based on the number of reported influenza cases, the actual prevalence of influenza may be greatly underestimated. The purpose of this study was to estimate the incidence rate of influenza and determine the true epidemiological characteristics of this virus.MethodsThe number of influenza cases and the prevalence of ILIs among outpatients in Zhejiang Province were obtained from the China Disease Control and Prevention Information System. Specimens were sampled from some cases and sent to laboratories for influenza nucleic acid testing. Random forest was used to establish an influenza estimation model based on the influenza-positive rate and the percentage of ILIs among outpatients. Furthermore, the moving epidemic method (MEM) was applied to calculate the epidemic threshold for different intensity levels. Joinpoint regression analysis was used to identify the annual change in influenza incidence. The seasonal trends of influenza were detected by wavelet analysis.ResultsFrom 2009 to 2021, a total of 990,016 influenza cases and 8 deaths were reported in Zhejiang Province. The numbers of estimated influenza cases from 2009 to 2018 were 743,449, 47,635, 89,026, 132,647, 69,218, 190,099, 204,606, 190,763, 267,168 and 364,809, respectively. The total number of estimated influenza cases is 12.11 times the number of reported cases. The APC of the estimated annual incidence rate was 23.33 (95% CI: 13.2 to 34.4) from 2011 to 2019, indicating a constant increasing trend. The intensity levels of the estimated incidence from the epidemic threshold to the very high-intensity threshold were 18.94 cases per 100,000, 24.14 cases per 100,000, 141.55 cases per 100,000, and 309.34 cases per 100,000, respectively. From the first week of 2009 to the 39th week of 2022, there were a total of 81 weeks of epidemics: the epidemic period reached a high intensity in 2 weeks, the epidemic period was at a moderate intensity in 75 weeks, and the epidemic period was at a low intensity in 2 weeks. The average power was significant on the 1-year scale, semiannual scale, and 115-week scale, and the average power of the first two cycles was significantly higher than that of the other cycles. In the period from the 20th week to the 35th week, the Pearson correlation coefficients between the time series of influenza onset and the positive rate of pathogens, including A(H3N2), A (H1N1)pdm2009, B(Victoria) and B(Yamagata), were − 0.089 (p = 0.021), 0.497 (p 

Complications and deaths among patients hospitalized with clinically diagnosed and laboratory-confirmed influenza by age group and influenza type, from 2010/2011–2018/2019 seasons.

Rank, number of deaths, percentage of deaths, and age-specific mortality rates for the leading causes of death, by age group and sex, 2000 to most recent year.

As of May 2, 2023, the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had spread to almost every country in the world, and more than 6.86 million people had died after contracting the respiratory virus. Over 1.16 million of these deaths occurred in the United States.

Waves of infections Almost every country and territory worldwide have been affected by the COVID-19 disease. At the end of 2021 the virus was once again circulating at very high rates, even in countries with relatively high vaccination rates such as the United States and Germany. As rates of new infections increased, some countries in Europe, like Germany and Austria, tightened restrictions once again, specifically targeting those who were not yet vaccinated. However, by spring 2022, rates of new infections had decreased in many countries and restrictions were once again lifted.

What are the symptoms of the virus? It can take up to 14 days for symptoms of the illness to start being noticed. The most commonly reported symptoms are a fever and a dry cough, leading to shortness of breath. The early symptoms are similar to other common viruses such as the common cold and flu. These illnesses spread more during cold months, but there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that temperature impacts the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Medical advice should be sought if you are experiencing any of these symptoms.

For the week ending August 29, 2025, weekly deaths in England and Wales were 985 below the number expected, compared with 855 below what was expected in the previous week. In late 2022 and through early 2023, excess deaths were elevated for a number of weeks, with the excess deaths figure for the week ending January 13, 2023, the highest since February 2021. In the middle of April 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were almost 12,000 excess deaths a week recorded in England and Wales. It was not until two months later, in the week ending June 19, 2020, that the number of deaths began to be lower than the five-year average for the corresponding week. Most deaths since 1918 in 2020 In 2020, there were 689,629 deaths in the United Kingdom, making that year the deadliest since 1918, at the height of the Spanish influenza pandemic. As seen in the excess death figures, April 2020 was by far the worst month in terms of deaths during the pandemic. The weekly number of deaths for weeks 16 and 17 of that year were 22,351, and 21,997 respectively. Although the number of deaths fell to more usual levels for the rest of that year, a winter wave of the disease led to a high number of deaths in January 2021, with 18,676 deaths recorded in the fourth week of that year. For the whole of 2021, there were 667,479 deaths in the UK, 22,150 fewer than in 2020. Life expectancy in the UK goes into reverse In 2022, life expectancy at birth for women in the UK was 82.6 years, while for men it was 78.6 years. This was the lowest life expectancy in the country for ten years, and came after life expectancy improvements stalled throughout the 2010s, and then declined from 2020 onwards. There is also quite a significant regional difference in life expectancy in the UK. In the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, for example, the life expectancy for men was 81.5 years, and 86.5 years for women. By contrast, in Blackpool, in North West England, male life expectancy was just 73.1 years, while for women, life expectancy was lowest in Glasgow, at 78 years.

The ILI incidence and mortality information referring to Iranian Influenza Surveillance System (IISS), March 2015-March 2019.

Summary of medical institutions, all-cause hospitalizations, and the frequency of medically-attended patients with clinically diagnosed and laboratory-confirmed influenza by season and age group, from 2010/2011 to 2018/2019.

Heart disease is currently the leading cause of death in the United States. In 2022, COVID-19 was the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for almost six percent of all deaths that year. The leading causes of death worldwide are similar to those in the United States. However, diarrheal diseases and neonatal conditions are major causes of death worldwide, but are not among the leading causes in the United States. Instead, accidents and chronic liver disease have a larger impact in the United States.

Racial differences

In the United States, there exist slight differences in leading causes of death depending on race and ethnicity. For example, assault, or homicide, accounts for around three percent of all deaths among the Black population but is not even among the leading causes of death for other races and ethnicities. However, heart disease and cancer are still the leading causes of death for all races and ethnicities.

Leading causes of death among men vs women

Similarly, there are also differences in the leading causes of death in the U.S. between men and women. For example, among men, intentional self-harm accounts for around two percent of all deaths but is not among the leading causes of death among women. On the other hand, influenza and pneumonia account for more deaths among women than men.