TAIPEI, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan recorded 15 deaths due to serious flu cases last week, raising the death toll of this winter flu season to 90, the island's disease control agency said Tuesday.
All the deceased patients, aged between 30 to 87, were not vaccinated against the flu and 14 of them had chronic diseases, the agency said in a press release.
However, the youngest of the deceased patients was a 30-year-old woman who had suffered no other illnesses. She died of pneumonia and myocarditis caused by the influenza A/H1N1 virus.
About 60,700 people went to hospitals for flu treatment from Feb. 9 to 15, down 27.6 percent from the previous week, with about 12.1 percent being emergency cases, still higher than the 11.5-percent benchmark that defines a flu epidemic, according to the statement.
About 58.8 percent of the flu cases last week were caused by the influenza A/H1N1 virus while the influenza B cases have kept increasing.
The island has recorded 950 serious flu cases since Oct. 1, 2019. About 43 percent of them were elderly people aged above 65 and 32 percent were aged 50 to 64.
