Alberta seeing deadliest flu season in recent memory; experts point to low vaccination rates

Alberta’s flu season has yet to end, but it’s already ranking as the deadliest in recent memory since the mid-1990s when reliable stats were first tracked.

Alberta’s flu season has yet to end, but it’s already ranking as the deadliest in recent memory since the mid-1990s when reliable stats were first tracked.

So far, 148 Albertans have died of influenza in the 2023 to 2024 season, which is an increase from the 123 deaths last season.

According to provincial data, there have been 2,189 Albertans hospitalized for the flu this season, which includes 223 admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).

“Certainly, we’re seeing a high hospital burden this year in terms of admissions and also deaths and an interesting thing that we’re noticing is that there’s a lot of cases in the 18 to 65-year-old age group in Alberta,” said infectious disease expert Dr. Lynora Saxinger.

“We see that sometimes with H1N1 years and this wasn’t an H1N1 year, but the severe disease in that group is actually very striking with a lot of hospital admissions and that group also had very little vaccine uptake as well.”

The majority of deaths are people over 70, however, there are a handful of younger people include two children under the age 10.

The most recent data shows there have been 12,053 cases of influenza in the 2023-24 season so far, compared to 9,784 last year.