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Influenza has almost been completely wiped out in Australia this year after much of the county went into Covid lockdown, which also stopped the usual seasonal spread of flu.
So far the nation has had just 484 cases of influenza to the end of August, mostly through international arrivals from India, with no deaths at all.
That compares to a staggering 313,000 cases of flu in Australia in 2019, which led to 953 deaths.
In July 2019, more than 70,000 Australians were suffering in bed with flu. In 2020, that number was slashed to 190 and in 2021, it was just 52.
Influenza has almost been wiped out in Australia this year after much of the county went into Covid lockdown which stopped the seasonal spread of flu too. (Pictured, a young woman sneezes into a tissue)
Even allowing for 2019 being an exceptionally bad year for the flu, with case numbers 27 times higher than the five year average, the turnaround is dramatic.
'We've never seen figures this low ever before,' Professor Ian Barr from WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza told the ABC.
'This is the
