Flu visits up 13.5% to over 150,000 last week: CDC

Taipei, Oct. 7 (CNA) Taiwan recorded over 150,000 influenza-related medical visits last week, up 13.5 percent from the previous week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Tuesday.

"The domestic influenza situation remains on an upward trend," CDC spokesperson Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) said at a regular news briefing in Taipei, noting that a total of 150,251 outpatient and emergency visits due to influenza were reported across Taiwan from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4.

A total of 57 severe influenza cases were recorded last week, with patients ranging in age from under 10 to their 90s, and most were unvaccinated, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Kuo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said the briefing.

16 influenza-related deaths were also reported, involving patients aged from under 10 to their 80s, Kuo added.

Of the deaths, the youngest was a 5-year-old girl in southern Taiwan with no underlying conditions who had not received a flu shot, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said.

She went to a clinic in mid-September and was diagnosed with influenza A, but later the same day developed symptoms including persistent high fever and fell unconscious, he said.

After ICU admission and antiviral treatment, brain imaging showed severe cerebral edema, and she died in late September, Lin added.

To protect against influenza, Tseng urged eligible high-risk groups to get vaccinated as soon as possible, saying getting a flu shot is "the most effective way to reduce severe illness and deaths."

She said that since the free vaccination program began on Oct. 1, nearly 1.07 million flu vaccine doses have been administered, roughly double the figure from a year earlier.

According to the CDC, the first phase of the program covers seniors aged 65 and over, Indigenous people aged 55 and over, preschool children aged 6 months and over, individuals with high-risk or chronic diseases, pregnant women, parents of infants under 6 months old, employees at child care or long-term care facilities, and health care and disease-control personnel.

When the second-phase rollout of the vaccines begins on Nov. 1, people aged 50 and over without high-risk or chronic conditions will also be eligible for both flu and COVID-19 shots.

In addition, students from elementary through senior high school, as well as those working with livestock or in animal disease control, are eligible for free flu jabs, but not COVID-19 shots, in the first phase, according to the CDC.