Viral respiratory diseases (including influenza and COVID-19) in Scotland surveillance report

About this release

Public Health Scotland (PHS) continue to consider timely ways to provide the public with official statistics. Between April and October 2025, Public Health Scotland (PHS) will update the narrative report once a month. The narrative report will be produced on 4 September 2025 and 2 October 2025. Full weekly narrative reporting will return on 9 October 2025. This approach aligns to the pre-pandemic one for respiratory pathogens, which typically follow a seasonal pattern. However, the interactive dashboard updates will remain a weekly publication. PHS will continue to monitor COVID-19 and other respiratory infection levels and reinstate the weekly narrative report before October 2025 if necessary.

Main points

Overall assessment 4 August 2025 to 31 August 2025 (ISO week 32 to week 35):

• Syndromic indicators for respiratory infections in the community and in GP practices remain at baseline in weeks 32 to 35.
• COVID-19: COVID-19 laboratory-confirmed cases have increased slightly across surveillance systems. Test positivity via laboratory surveillance increased from 9.3% (Week 32) to 10.7% (Week 35) although remains low in comparison to any point during past 2 seasons. There has been a statistically significant increase to 17.1%, from 12% in the previous four-week period, via CARI surveillance.
• Influenza, RSV and other pathogens: In laboratory surveillance, all pathogens remained at baseline activity levels over the last month. In CARI surveillance, there was a statistically significant decrease in test positivity for parainfluenza virus from 8.2% to 5.5%. No other pathogens showed significant changes within the CARI surveillance system. All-cause excess mortality for week 33 (the latest week not impacted by reporting delays) remained at baseline overall.
• The RSV vaccination programme for older adults and pregnant women in Scotland commenced in August 2024. From 1 August 2024 to 30 June 2025, 19,850 women who gave birth received an RSV vaccine, resulting in coverage of 49.7%.
• The 2024 to 2025 influenza vaccine provided moderate protection for children and adults against hospitalisation. As well, the 2024 to 2025 autumn/winter COVID-19 vaccine offered moderate protection against hospitalisation in adults aged 65 and over, with some evidence of waning of protection since time of vaccination after 180 days. These findings further reinforce the importance among the eligible older adult population of continuing to get seasonal influenza and COVID-19 vaccines when offered.

Further information

The next update of the interactive dashboard will be 11 September 2025.

The next narrative report will be published on 2 October 2025.

Find out more

Previous Publications

Versions of the Weekly national respiratory report publication released before 30 November 2022 may be found on the Public Health Scotland website.

Versions of the COVID-19 weekly statistical report publication released before 30 November 2022 may be found on the Public Health Scotland website.

Open data

Open data from this publication is available from the following weblinks:

• Viral respiratory diseases Open Data platform
• Flu and COVID vaccination uptake Open Data platform

Further data

• The COVID-19 Vaccine Wastage datafile was updated on 18 April 2024 to include the most recent information.
• The COVID-19 in Adult Care Homes in Scotland datafile was updated on 27 July 2023 to include more recent information.
• 28 September 2022 COVID-19 statistical report publication contains information on COVID-19 infection and vaccination in pregnancy in Scotland.
• 2 March 2022 COVID-19 statistical report publication contains information on Highest Risk (shielding patients list)
• 7 November 2023 Community Acute Respiratory Infection (CARI) surveillance in primary care contains information on flu Vaccine effectiveness in community settings.
• 25 May 2023 Interim 2022/23 influenza vaccine effectiveness: six European studies, October 2022 to January 2023, contains information on flu Vaccine effectiveness in hospital settings.
• 13 January 2024 Estimated number of lives directly saved by COVID-19 vaccination programs in the WHO European Region, December 2020 to March 2023, contains information on lives saved due to COVID-19 vaccination