The number of Acute Emergency Admissions into hospitals in Scotland for influenza have continued to decline. For the week ending 26 January there were 258, compared with 416 the previous week. The data for all Health Boards across Scotland is as follows:

NHS Ayrshire and Arran	60	38	22
NHS Borders	14	5	12
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	17	8	6
NHS Fife	44	37	17
NHS Forth Valley	38	37	11
NHS Grampian	36	35	25
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	154	111	51
NHS Highland	32	13	17
NHS Lanarkshire	53	32	33
NHS Lothian	76	53	25
NHS Orkney	2	0	1
NHS Shetland	0	1	0
NHS Tayside	67	46	38
NHS Western Isles	3	0	0
Golden Jubilee National Hospital	0	0	0
Scotland	596	416	258

 Laboratory-confirmed influenza case numbers have continued to decline overall, to 557 in week 4; over five-times lower than the peak observed in week 52. Influenza B accounts for 27% (149 cases) of all influenza diagnoses reported this week, rising earlier than in previous seasons but still low overall. Public Health Scotland

GP attendances for influenza-like-illness remained at a higher activity level than the same week in previous seasons.

There were 64 deaths which mentioned influenza (week of 20 – 26 January) and it was the underlying cause in 50 of these deaths. Death registrations mentioning influenza have peaked around week 2 and 3 in previous years, such as winter 2022/23 and winter 2017/18.

Hospital Admissions for Covid-19 were also down very slightly for the same period to 45, from 46 the previous week.

There were 9 deaths that mentioned COVID-19. Sadly one of those deaths was in Orkney. Of the 9 deaths involving Covid, Covid was the main cause in 6 of them. All of the deaths took place in Hospital.

The provisional total number of deaths registered in Scotland in week 4 of 2025 (20th January to 26th January) was 1,347. This is 73 or 5.1% lower than the expected number of deaths in week 4.

Fiona Grahame