During the most recent respiratory virus season, the risk of hospitalization was higher for influenza than for COVID-19, per a US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) study of nearly 13,000 patients.

The authors, from the VA Saint Louis Health Care System, noted that while COVID-19 was tied to a substantially greater risk of hospitalization than flu early in the pandemic, data showed an increase in flu cases and hospitalizations in 2025-26 compared with previous seasons.

The findings were published last week in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

“However, population-level metrics reflect both infection frequency and disease severity and cannot alone determine the relative clinical severity of one pathogen versus another,” they wrote. “A head-to-head comparison of hospitalisation risk among infected individuals—which isolates disease severity from differences in infection frequency—has not been undertaken for the 2025–26 influenza season.”

43% higher likelihood of admission with flu

In total, 9,363 patients tested positive for flu, and 3,298 were diagnosed as having COVID-19. After adjustment, the risk of hospitalization per 1,000 people was 160.4 for flu and 112.1 per 1,000 for COVID-19 (relative risk, 1.43), which translates to roughly 48 more hospitalizations for flu per 100,000 people. This held true across subgroups based on demographic and clinical factors.

The higher severity... likely reflects a combination of factors, including the increased virulence of circulating influenza strains, mismatch between vaccine composition and dominant circulating influenza variants, and the continued attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 severity over successive waves.

“The higher severity associated with seasonal influenza during this season likely reflects a combination of factors, including the increased virulence of circulating influenza strains, mismatch between vaccine composition and dominant circulating influenza variants, and the continued attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 severity over successive waves,” the researchers wrote.

They cautioned that the VA population is older and made up mostly of men, which could limit generalizability to other populations, and that because only people with infections confirmed through testing were included, the findings may not reflect risks for untested people.

• The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has now confirmed 12 cases of New World screwworm (NWS) in the United States. Eleven of the 12 cases are in Texas, where the first case was confirmed in a 3-week-old calf on June 3, and the other is in New Mexico. The most recent confirmed infestation of the parasitic fly, whose larvae feed on the living flesh of livestock and other animals, was detected on June 11 in a sheep in Sullivan County, Texas. In related news, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week that it’s officially activated a Level 3 emergency response to support the USDA and the Texas Department of State Health Services in their response to the NWS detections. Level 3 is the lowest of CDC’s three emergency-response levels.
• A new report from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) warns that reduced funding for HIV prevention could threaten decades of progress in the HIV response. In its latest Global AIDS Brief, UNAIDS said initial data from 62 countries shows the number of people who received pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) declined by 38% in 2025 amid cuts in domestic and international funding for HIV prevention programs, while HIV testing fell by 22% in countries with high levels of HIV. Funding for condoms and for programs that ensure people can reach prevention services fell by 93% and 80%, respectively. “Progress made to date on the HIV response is real and fragile,” the report states. “Without renewed commitment and action, we risk a resurgence of the epidemic.”
• The European Medicine Agency’s (EMA’s) Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee has recommended restricting use of the live-attenuated chikungunya vaccine Ixchiq to people with a high risk of infection. The decision comes after an EMA review of available safety data found that some adverse events reported after administration of the vaccine, which contains a weakened strain of the chikungunya virus, have resulted in hospitalization and death. Among the serious or prolonged chikungunya-like adverse reactions include malaise and decreased appetite, encephalopathy and encephalitis, exacerbation of pre-existing conditions, and aseptic meningitis or confusion.