Death statistics are published weekly by the Northern Ireland
Statistics Research Agency (NISRA).
Today's statistics for week ending 31 January 2025 will for the
first time include a count of deaths related to flu and/or
pneumonia. This will enable comparisons with weekly information
published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) covering
England and Wales.
Statistics on weekly deaths registered in Northern Ireland can be
found on the NISRA website at: Weekly death registrations in
Northern Ireland | Northern Ireland Statistics and Research
Agency Data on flu/pneumonia related deaths can be found
in table 1.
The statistics report on deaths where flu and/or pneumonia was
mentioned anywhere on the death certificate. As a result, the
counts will reflect deaths where flu or pneumonia has contributed
to a death but was not necessarily the underlying cause of the
death.
The figures show that 94 deaths related to flu and/or pneumonia
were registered in the week ending 31 January 2025.
This brings the total so far in 2025 to 499 which is higher than
the same period in 2024 when 424 deaths were registered. However,
looking at the same period over a longer time series (2014 to
2024), the total of 499 flu/pneumonia related deaths is higher
than 6 of the years, but lower than 5 of the years.
Looking at individual weeks in 2025, week 2 had the joint highest
(with week 2 2023) number of flu and/or pneumonia related deaths
registered in one week (138) since the last flu epidemic in
winter 2017/18. Weekly totals have subsequently fallen to 94 in
the latest week. There was a decline in the number of deaths
related to flu and/or pneumonia registered in week 4 of 2025,
this is linked to registration office closures due to Storm
Éowyn.
There have been 790 flu/pneumonia related deaths since the start
of winter 2024/25 (week 49 2024 to week 5 2025), higher than the
659 such deaths in the same period of 2023/24 but lower than the
same period of 2022/23 (824).
Notes to editors:
1. Deaths related to flu and/or pneumonia refer to any deaths
where the terms flu, influenza or pneumonia (including variations
in spelling) are mentioned anywhere on the death certificate.
This is to identify the cases where the causes of death will,
once coded using the International Classification of Diseases
(ICD)-10 framework, include any of the codes between ‘J09' and
‘J18'. As such conditions like aspiration pneumonia which
corresponds to an ICD-10 code outside that range have been
excluded from the total. See the definitions tab in the weekly
deaths spreadsheet for more information.
2. This release includes the enhanced weekly deaths registered
tables as well as a back series of data covering 4 separate
series of weekly deaths for the years 2014 to 2024:
- i. Deaths related to flu and/or pneumonia - i.e.
appearance anywhere on the death certificate of any of the
International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) codes between
J09 and J18 up to quarter 2 2024; and Q3 and Q4 2024 based on
relevant key words appearing on the medical certificate of cause
of death.
- ii. Deaths due to flu and/or pneumonia - i.e. where
the underlying cause of death was any ICD-10 code from J09 to
J18. (Such coded data is only available up to quarter 2 2024.)
- iii. Deaths related to respiratory conditions – i.e. where
any of the ICD-10 codes ‘J00' to ‘J99' appear in the list of
causes of death either as underlying or contributory. This
information is available up to Quarter 2 2024.
- iv. Deaths due to respiratory conditions – i.e. where the
underlying cause of death had an ICD-10 code between J00 and J99.
3. The data on flu/pneumonia and respiratory deaths (both
‘related to' and ‘due to') are comparable to the totals produced
by ONS in their weekly release on death registrations: (Deaths registered weekly in
England and Wales, provisional - Office for National
Statistics).
4. The Public Health Agency (PHA) separately publish a weekly
respiratory surveillance report Respiratory surveillance report
| HSC Public Health Agency) which includes a section on
mortality surveillance. This information covers
respiratory-associated deaths including those that are
attributable to influenza and other respiratory infections or
their complications, specifically - “bronchiolitis, bronchitis,
influenza or pneumonia” using keywords recorded on the death
certificate. This is a different coverage than the NISRA official
statistics.
5. Deaths relating to flu and/or pneumonia have been reported
based on the date the death was registered which may not have
been the same week in which it occurred.
6. Historical data shows that the usual trend is for more
flu/pneumonia related deaths to be registered during winter thus
taking the season into account when making comparisons is an
important factor. Pandemic years (2020 and 2021) may not,
however, reflect the ‘usual' trend as Covid-19 waves partially or
completely took place outside of the winter period; Covid-19 was
often accompanied with pneumonia in the list of causes of death.
7. The weekly number of death registrations can be impacted by
office closures around public holidays and exceptional
circumstances (for example extreme adverse weather conditions) so
care should be taken when making comparisons.
