Seven flu-related deaths were confirmed last week, but as the number of emergency room visits for flu-like symptoms last week fell below the epidemic threshold, the peak period of the flu season might end as soon as next week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, but warned that people should still take precautionary measures.
There were 82,252 cases of flu-like illness reported last week, a weekly decline of 5.7 percent, CDC disease monitoring data showed.
A total of 55 serious flu complication cases were confirmed last week, of which 78 percent, or 43 cases, were caused by influenza A virus subtype H1N1, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Liu Ting-ping (劉定萍) said.
The majority of the cases involved people aged 50 or older, with 51 percent, or 28 cases, involving people aged 65 years or older and 31 percent, or 17 cases, involving patients aged 50 to 64, she said.
A total of 716 serious flu complication cases have been confirmed this flu season, which began in October last year, she added.
Of the seven flu-related deaths confirmed last week, the youngest was a 34-year-old man and the oldest was an 86-year-old, while the other fatalities were people in their 50s, CDC physician Huang Wan-ting (黃婉婷) said, adding that they all had chronic diseases and were not vaccinated against the flu this season.
Although the 34-year-old was not in a high-risk group for contracting the flu, his chronic diseases made him more vulnerable to infection and put him at a higher risk of serious complications, she said, adding that he had been eligible for government-funded vaccination.
Huang urged young people with chronic diseases such as diabetes, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, chronic liver disease or cardiovascular disease to get vaccinated against the flu.
As of Sunday, there were still about 111,000 government-funded flu vaccines available, CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said.
Among those eligible for vaccination, people aged 50 to 65 have the lowest vaccination rate at 17.9 percent and are advised to seize the opportunity for better protection, Lo said.
As the weekly number of flu-like illnesses has been falling and emergency room visits last week dropped below the epidemic threshold, the CDC could announce the end to the peak flu season next week if emergency room visits remain under the threshold, he said.
However, people should still take precautionary measures against the flu and seek immediate medical treatment as soon as signs of serious complications occur, he added.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not