Alaska reports 36 flu deaths in 2025-26 season, most in four years

Thirty-six Alaskans died of influenza-associated illness during the 2025-26 season, the worst toll in at least four years. None were children.

The state's flu deaths have climbed steeply. The 2022-23 season brought five. The next brought 10. The 2024-25 season more than doubled that, and this one nearly doubled again. Influenza and pneumonia deaths statewide reached an age-adjusted rate of 10.0 per 100,000 in 2024, up from 8.3 the year before.

The state Section of Epidemiology, which published the count Friday, didn't blame any single factor. "The combination of concentrated transmission, circulating virus characteristics, low vaccine coverage rates, and decreased VE might help explain the relative severity of the 2025–26 season," its bulletin said.

The vaccine was part of it. Both the A/H3 strain that dominated early and the influenza B that took over from January onward differed from the matching components in this season's shot. A preliminary estimate put vaccine effectiveness for adults seeking care at 22 to 34 percent — less protective than a typical year, though not zero. No antiviral resistance turned up.

Vaccination coverage is harder to pin down than it looks. State vaccination records show 22.7 percent of Alaskans 19 and older got a flu shot, against an estimated national average of 46.5 percent. But those two numbers come from different methods and aren't directly comparable. In CDC's survey series, which measures states and the nation the same way, Alaska adults were at 43.9 percent and the nation at 47.4 percent in 2022-23, the most recent season published.

Cases climbed fast in November and peaked from late December into early January.

The section urged clinicians to vaccinate patients 6 months and older, and to consider early antiviral treatment for older adults, young children, pregnant patients and people with chronic conditions.