Hong Kong health experts insist flu epidemic ‘under control’ despite rising death toll

Health experts claim the flu epidemic is under control and say there is no need for a citywide policy on wearing masks despite the mounting death toll.

The winter's dominant virus strain - a mutated variant of H3N2 - claimed seven more lives in the city yesterday, bringing the death toll to 118 and the number of severe cases this year to 187.

Yuen Kwok-yung, infectious diseases expert at the University of Hong Kong, said the death toll could reach 400, yet insisted the situation was under control.

"There is no need to panic. The number is not that bad compared with that in 2004," he said.

Yuen said there were four factors to assess the need for more action: the number of young people admitted to an intensive care unit who later died; the death rate for vulnerable groups; the percentage of flu cases in intensive care; and the daily rate of H3N2-positive samples.

He urged vulnerable groups, including the elderly, children and pregnant women, to wear masks when going out.

Gabriel Leung Cheuk-wai, dean of the medical faculty at HKU, said research had shown H3N2 was a stronger strain of the influenza virus than others. According to an HKU study from 1998 to 2009, some 500 to 1,000 deaths were estimated to be associated with flu per year.