Georgia Flu Surveillance Update: Week 51 – 2024

Week 51
(Ending December 21, 2024)

Viral Respiratory Diseases Surveillance

Pan-Respiratory Virus Surveillance (Georgia – last updated 12/14/2024)

Graph shows influenza cases are higher than RSV and COVID-19 ending week of 12/14/2024

Georgia Flu Surveillance Update

As of Week 50, Georgia flu activity was high = 10 (on the scale of 1-13). Activity levels are based on the percent of outpatient visits in Georgia due to influenza-like illness during this timeframe.

For the corresponding week, the percentage of outpatient visits for influenza-like Illness was 6.1%(which is above the regional baseline of 3.2%), the number of influenza-associated death was 0 (0 total for the current ILI season); the number of Metro Area Influenza Hospitalizations was 104 (310 total for current Flu season); and the number of Influenza Outbreaks was 7 (18 total for current Flu season).

Map shows Influenza-like cases in southern US region. Georgia activity indicator is at level 10 **(High)** on week 51 as shown in orange

ILI (Influenza-like Illness) Percentages by Season

The graph shows a snapshot comparison of influenza-like illness in Georgia to previous years. Between weeks 50 and 51, influenza cases have increased substantially, though the percentage of ILI visits for 2024-2025 is still lower compared to the previous year’s flu season.

COVID-19 Snapshot in Georgia

Graph shows COVID-19 cases being low for all age groups. The SARS-CoV-2 subvariant Omicron XEC is responsible for 45% of all cases in the U.S. For the majority of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are occurring among those 65 years and older

Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection (RSV) Surveillance

Data from NREVSS are also analyzed to measure the RSV seasonality. Antigen and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are analyzed separately to determine the start and end of RSV season. Season onset is defined as the first week of two consecutive weeks when the percent positive of ALL laboratory confirmed tests are greater than or equal a certain threshold. The end is defined as the first week of two consecutive weeks when the percent positive of ALL laboratory confirmed tests are less than a certain threshold. For antigen-based testing, the threshold is 10% and for PCR the threshold is 3%.

During week 51, clinical laboratories in Georgia reported testing 3,710 (12.3% positive) antigen specimens and 2,215 (17.9% positive) PCR specimens.

For week 51, PCR Detections: Graph shows a decrease in RSV PCR positive test results/cases compared to the previous week.

Getting vaccinated is the best thing you can do to protect yourself and others.

District 2 health departments have vaccines available. Please contact your local health department for information on how to get your vaccine at http://phdistrict2.org/contact-us.

To learn more about how to protect yourself against flu and other respiratory diseases, visit DPH website at https://dph.georgia.gov/epidemiology/acute-disease-epidemiology/viral-respiratory-diseases and CDC website at https://www.cdc.gov/flu/.

All Georgia physicians, laboratories, and other health care providers are required by law to report notifiable diseases. Instructions, including notifiable conditions and the timeframe in which they are reportable can be found at https://dph.georgia.gov/epidemiology/disease-reporting. Georgia tracks the listed conditions statewide using multiple overlapping surveillance systems, especially in the case of viral respiratory diseases as some are not reportable at the individual case level.

Resources

Viral Respiratory Diseases weekly Update Week 51 – 2024