Australia cases suggest bad flu season for U.S.

Companies and pharmacies are already reminding people that it’s time to get a flu shot, and the push may be more warranted this year.

A particularly bad flu season was reported in Australia, which has served as a rough measuring stick for the flu season that follows in the Northern Hemisphere.

From Jan. 1 to Aug. 19, 2016, the Australian health department reported 37,266 total cases of influenza to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System. This year, in August alone, New South Wales reported 47,863 cases of the flu — more than 3.5 times the number of cases (13,602) the most populous Australian state reported in August 2016, according to NSW Government Health.

“In general, we get in our season what the Southern Hemisphere got in the season immediately preceding us,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN.

But Fauci also said just because the flu hit Australia hard does not absolutely mean the same will happen in the United States, accord- ing to the American Council on Science and Health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention partner with health departments and other groups on a U.S. influenza surveillance system designed to paint a broad picture of flu activity in the country. It also works with external research teams in an effort to provide “a more timely and forward- looking tool that health officials can use to target medical interventions, inform earlier public health actions and allocate resources for communications, disease prevention and control.”