The Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases held a meeting today to review the latest seasonal influenza situation.

The committee, under the Centre for Health Protection, also looked into the effectiveness of the seasonal influenza vaccine for the 2018-19 winter flu season.

It said that while the local influenza activity remains elevated, the percentage of respiratory specimens received by the centre that tested positive for seasonal influenza viruses decreased from 30.1% in the week ending January 19 to 25.48% in the week ending January 26.

The number of influenza-like illness outbreaks dropped markedly from the peak of 211 recorded last week to 21 in the first four days of this week.

​Meanwhile, the overall admission rate with principal diagnosis of influenza in public hospitals fell from 1.53 to 1.15 cases per 10,000 people from the week ending January 19 to the week ending January 26.

Among children aged below six, the rate fell from 10.94 to 7.65 cases per 10,000 people in the same period.

​The centre also noted that preliminary results showed the seasonal influenza vaccine offers about 60% protection against laboratory-confirmed infections in the local primary care setting in the 2018-19 season.

​The committee emphasised that the vaccine for the current season is highly effective in preventing influenza in both out-patient and in-patient settings.

The majority of severe influenza cases had not received the vaccine for this season, it added.