Australia has recorded 100 times more lab-confirmed flu cases in the first two months of 2023 compared with the same reporting period last year, national data show.

Yet influenza experts say this early surge in notifications likely signals a return to a ‘normal’ season following the coronavirus pandemic.

Nearly 8500 cases were reported to the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System in January and February this year — a 107-fold increase from the 79 cases in the same period in 2022.

Professor Ian Barr, from the Doherty Institute in Melbourne, pointed to increased testing rates as well as the return of international travel and increased socialisation to explain this spike.