Alberta's flu season deadliest in recent memory as experts call for action
CBC
Influenza deaths have soared to new heights in Alberta this year, according to nearly two decades worth of data, prompting concern from health experts.
According to Alberta's respiratory virus dashboard, 250 people have died so far this flu season.
While the province cautions there have been changes to how flu deaths are tracked, this represents the highest number reported since at least 2009, when Alberta launched its universal seasonal flu vaccine program and data became publicly available.
“This is quite concerning," said Craig Jenne, deputy director of the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases at the University of Calgary.
"This has been four consecutive years of setting new records and really no indication at this point that this trend is going to turn around."
Death rates, based on population, are also higher than previously recorded.
“This is representing a significant strain on the health-care system here in Alberta, a significant strain on families and, tragically, the loss of Albertans.”
In a statement, the province said it is difficult to gauge if the flu death toll is the "highest ever," because prior to the 2021-22 season flu deaths outside of hospital were not routinely counted. The 2022-23 season was the first year community deaths were fully counted.
Data shared by the province in April 2025 showed, at the time, community deaths accounted for 16 of the total deaths that season and fewer than ten during each of the previous years.
"This has been a really, really difficult flu year through the lense of the hospital, " said Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious disease physician at the University of Alberta Hospital, who saw many severely ill patients end up on life-support.
"It would be wrong to normalize that there's always an influenza surge and always difficulty because it has been getting worse. The potential for it to be just absolutely catastrophic for the provision of care for absolutely everything else remains very high,” said Saxinger.
Alberta’s respiratory virus dashboard shows 12 of the Albertans who died due to flu this season were between the ages of 20 and 49 (including three people in their twenties and three in their thirties). The rest were among people aged 50 and older.
No deaths among children have been reported so far this season.
There have been 3,725 hospitalizations and 275 ICU admissions due to influenza.
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