Increase in cases coincides with long cold snap and poorly staffed hospitals
Vince Chong, Straits Times 15 Mar 08;
HONG KONG - THE good news is that no new, deadlier flu strains have emerged in Hong Kong's recent flu outbreak.
This was confirmed by gene sequencing on flu viruses from two of the three children whose deaths had been linked to flu, the government said in a statement last night.
The two victims were a seven-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl.
Tests on the third victim, a 27-month-old toddler, could not detect any flu virus.
The deaths had prompted Hong Kong to order a two-week closure of all primary schools and kindergartens late on Wednesday - the first time such a drastic move has been taken since the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak in 2003.
Over in China, Health Minister Chen Zhu told reporters that no unusual flu patterns had been detected in Guangdong province, which is right next to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong's closure of schools set off health alarms overseas, even though experts said there was no evidence to suggest that the cases were linked to either bird flu or Sars.
In interviews with The Straits Times yesterday, medical experts explained that understaffed hospitals and one of Hong Kong's longest cold snaps had contributed to a rise in influenza cases this year.
The city of seven million is experiencing the peak of its annual flu season, which happens to book-end its coldest February in 40 years, when average daily temperatures reached 13.3 deg C, or 3 deg C below the norm in other years.
Dr Thomas Tsang, the head of Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection, said that viruses found during the current flu season are typically harmless strains such as H1 and H3, rather than new strains or worse, the deadlier H5 and H7 types - like bird flu - for which there is no vaccine available.
He noted that the two victims who died from flu-like symptoms had other complications, which reduced their immunity levels.
Another infectious disease expert, Dr Lo Wing Lok, said that 'two deaths during flu season in a city is not high'.
He added that worries over a flu outbreak were also confined mainly to suburban towns, rather than territory-wide.
Dr Tsang said that a lack of historical evidence on how many people die from flu annually made things worse.
'Some parents tend to panic when they cannot compare,' he said, noting that 160 to 170 children in Hong Kong die every year from various causes.
'So one of our key tasks now is to sieve through our historical data and find out how many actually die from flu each year.'
In Australia, for example, seven children died during the peak of the country's flu season in 2007, he said.
Dr Lo said it was not helpful that regional hospitals such as the one in Tuen Mun, where two of the victims had lived, are greatly understaffed - a problem Hong Kong is trying to remedy through ongoing health-care reforms.
'One doctor there is doing the work of three, so, coupled with the extreme cold weather, it is no surprise that the number of flu cases has increased,' he said.
'Plus all the media stories have also sent more people to the doctor, even though they are not that sick.'.
There was a 16 per cent rise in last month's number of public hospital emergency admissions compared with the same period last year.
Hong Kong, Dr Tsang said, is looking into including primary school children in the public flu vaccination programme.
At the moment, the government's annual 300,000 flu shots - usually administered in November, ahead of the flu season - go to 'high-risk groups' such as health-care workers, the elderly and the needy with chronic diseases, said Dr Tsang.
He said: 'There are still several weeks left in the flu season, which might even persist till May, but it is generally safe.'
