Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has warned that its stock of government-funded flu vaccines is running out as more people in high risk groups have gotten vaccinated against the virus than in 2021.
CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) told CNA Monday that 5.14 million doses of the 6.29 million doses of publicly funded flu vaccines purchased for the 2022-2023 flu season had been distributed as of Sunday.
Among people aged 65 and over, 47.1 percent have gotten vaccinated, up 15 percentage points from the same period last year, while 46.2 percent of preschool children had been vaccinated so far, up 0.5 percentage points from a year ago, Chuang said.
He urged unvaccinated individuals, especially seniors and preschool children who are at increased risk of developing serious complications from the flu, to get vaccinated, but he did not say if the government would procure more vaccines if demand were to remain strong.
Although the number of outpatient and emergency visits for treatment of influenza/influenza-like illness in the past week was down slightly from a week earlier, it was still higher than that during the same period in 2020 and 2021, he said.
Influenza A (H3N2) remained the dominant virus among influenza cases in Taiwan, Chuang said.
The CDC, meanwhile, reported two new confirmed cases of influenza with severe complications, including one man who died within four days from the onset of symptoms.
The man, who was in his 70s and had not been vaccinated, was the second flu-related death of the 2022-23 flu season.
He had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, high blood pressure, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses, Chuang said.
The other individual, a boy under the age of 5, was discharged from the hospital on Nov. 8 after being treated with antiviral drugs.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel