Over 9,000 people seek emergency flu treatment Sunday

Taipei, Typically high numbers of people sought emergency treatment for flu-like symptoms during the Lunar New Year holiday, but they were not abnormally high, a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) official said Wednesday.

The number of people seeking care for flu-like symptoms traditionally peaks during the vacation, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (???) said, and this year around 36,000 people sought emergency treatment for the flu during the Feb. 15-20 vacation.

That was only the fourth most for a Lunar New Year holiday since 2012, according to Chuang.

The number peaked at 9,000 patients on Feb. 18.

For the week of Feb. 11-17, 110,130 people sought outpatient and emergency treatment for flu-like symptoms at hospitals and clinics throughout the country, a similar number as the previous week, Chuang said.

Of those, 30,062 were emergency ward patients, up 88 percent from the previous week because most outpatient services were closed Feb. 15-17, the first three days of the Lunar New Year vacation, Chuang said.

During the week ending Feb. 17, 59 people developed serious complications from flu infections. Two of them were one-year-old children who had not been vaccinated against the flu.

Among the 59, four people ranging in age from 59 to 80 with histories of chronic disease died of their complications, Chuang said, but only two of the four had not gotten a flu vaccine.

Since October 2017, 430 serious cases of flu have been reported in Taiwan, 58 of which have resulted in deaths, according to CDC statistics. Some 80 percent of the victims were infected with the most prevalent B type flu virus, the figures showed.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel