A four-year-old girl infected with a potentially fatal strain of influenza was in a critical condition yesterday as the flu continues to overshadow the spring season.
The girl, who has not travelled out of the city recently, was confirmed to have contracted influenza B.
She first developed a fever and cough on March 8. She was found unconscious at home the next day and was admitted to the paediatric intensive care unit at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei.
She developed a rare disease known as haemorrhagic shock encephalopathy syndrome - which is characterised by an acute onset of severe shock, blood clotting, brain disease, and liver and kidney dysfunction in previously healthy children.
Most cases of the syndrome, whose cause is unknown, occur in patients aged between eight months and three years, but it can also hit older children. Symptoms include an extremely high body temperature and multiple organ failure. Patients are likely to die or develop long-term neurological problems.
Last month a six-year-old girl who tested positive for influenza B recovered after hospital treatment.