40 years old Tennille Smith died of Flu like symptoms. Mother of three is 500thvictim of Australia's worst flu season in history.
Some doctors are blaming these numbers on this year's batch of the flu vaccination.
Professor Paul van Buynder, from the Immunisation Coalition, says there were stronger alternatives out there.
"We couldn't do anything other than use the one we did this year, because the companies did not bring the better vaccines into Australia. We do know they're working through a licensing process, they should be available in 2018."
The government's chief medical officer, Professor Brendan Murphy, says any suggestion the vaccine chosen was based on cost, is false.
"It is completely incorrect that we purchased vaccines other than the best available and the suggestion that it was based on cost is completely erroneous. They were not an alternative at all, it was not possible to consider them last year beacuse they weren't registered or available for purchase in this country."
According to the Immunisation Coalition, there were nearly 91,000 (90,861) laboratory-confirmed notifications of influenza in Australia last year.
But so far this year, there have been nearly two-and-a-half times as many cases, with almost 220,000 (217,559) notifications.
New South Wales was the state hardest hit, followed by Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia.
But some GPs believe the quality of the vaccination isn't the reason for this year's dire numbers.
Dr Abhi Verma, from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, says the key is to get more people vaccinated.
"I think the issue is that the vaccination currently available is safe and certainly well tested, but primarily, we're testing too few people. There's no point having a stronger vaccination if too few people are getting it. And so I think the issue has been that there's far too few people being vaccinated and there's just far too many people leaving themselves susceptible to the influenza virus due to inactivity."
The Chief Medical Officer, under instruction from health minister Greg Hunt, is examining how to strengthen the immunisation scheme ahead of next flu season.
And this includes talking with manufacturers about new vaccines.
Melbourne based member of Indian Australian community Pradeep is troubled by flu for last two weeks. He says he took vaccination last year and was not affected by it. But this year he forgot to take vaccination.
Pradeep says he has learnt his lesson by losing work for two week.
