Doctors urge Australians to get a flu vaccine after virus claims 68 lives

Doctors are urging Australians to get their flu vaccine after 68 people have been confirmed killed by a “horror” flu season, with the worst still to come.

Deaths are already at record levels in many states, before the traditional flu season has even begun.

Twenty-six people – three children and 23 aged care residents – have died in Victoria, 25 have died in Queensland, and 17 have died in South Australia this season.

In SA, there are 10 times as many cases this year as the same time last year – and winter has not even begun.

Related: Flu experts predict 4,000 Australians will die from influenza this year

The elderly, young children and Indigenous Australians are at increased risk of dying from the flu. One outbreak in a SA nursing home this year killed five people.

Flu vaccines are safe and free for anyone aged 65 or over, children under five, pregnant women and for the first time all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people under the national immunisation program. It takes two to three weeks to develop immunity after vaccination.

SA Health has described it as an “unprecedented” flu season with so many deaths and infections, with the worst yet to come.

The state’s chief medical officer, Paddy Phillips, said the 17 deaths were “the tip of the iceberg”.

“We have never seen influenza in these numbers at this time of the year,” he said. “Influenza is unfortunately everywhere in our community. It’s in supermarkets, it’s in workplaces, it’s in schools, it’s in sporting clubs and it’s in nursing homes.”

In SA, there have been 12,339 cases this year – compared to only 1,348 at the same time last year.

In Queensland, 10,409 people have caught the flu this year, compared to 15,685 for the whole of 2018.

New South Wales is also reporting higher flu rates for this time of year, indicating an early start to the flu season, with the influenza A strain predominating.

Peak flu season varies from state to state but is usually between July and October.

Queensland’s health minister, Steven Miles, said the number of cases is putting a strain on the state’s hospitals, but that more beds have been made available to handle the increase in demand.

Related: Sydney faces 27C weather with winter just days away

Health experts say one explanation for the high number of cases is two different influenza A viruses that affect different age groups are circulating at the same time.

“One’s more likely to affect children and young adults and the other affects old people, but they’re both around so everybody’s going to be impacted,” the Griffith University immunisation expert Prof Paul Van Buynder has told the Courier-Mail.

People aged 65 and over should receive a different vaccine – called Fluad (Seqirus) – to the rest of the population.

Free vaccines are available under the national immunisation program for those eligible at their GP clinic, hospitals, Aboriginal medical services, aged care facilities or childhood vaccination clinics.