TAIPEI, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan has reported 914 serious flu cases since Oct. 1, 2019, the highest over the past five years, the island's disease control agency said Tuesday.
From Feb. 2 to 8, the island added 56 serious flu cases and 14 deaths due to flu, the agency said in a press release.
The youngest of the deaths last week, also the youngest of this epidemic season, was a 23-year-old man who suffered chronic pneumonia and congenital immune deficiencies, the press release said.
About 82,800 people went to hospitals for flu treatment from Feb. 2 to Feb. 8, down 19.5 percent from the previous week, with about 15.5 percent being emergency cases, still much higher than the 11.5-percent benchmark that defines a flu epidemic, according to the statement.
About 73.5 percent of the flu cases were caused by the influenza A/H1N1 virus but the influenza B/H1N1 cases have kept increasing.
About 43 percent of the serious flu cases were elderly people above 65 and 32 percent were aged 50 to 64. A total of 75 deaths have been caused by the flu virus.
