The Centre for Health Protection today announced that Hong Kong has entered the summer influenza season, given that the local seasonal influenza activity continued to increase in the past week and exceeded the epidemic threshold.
 
From the latest surveillance data, the overall local seasonal influenza activity has increased since July.
 
Among the respiratory specimens, the latest weekly percentage of detections that tested positive for seasonal influenza viruses was 9.83% in the week ending August 19.
 
The predominating circulating viruses were influenza A H3.
 
The overall admission rate with principal diagnosis of influenza in public hospitals was 0.43 per 10,000 population in the same week.
 
There were seven institutional influenza-like illness outbreaks reported in the same week.
 
As of August 20, about 1.56 million doses of seasonal influenza vaccination had been administered through the Government Vaccination Programme, the Vaccination Subsidy Scheme and the Seasonal Influenza Vaccination School Outreach (Free of Charge) Programme 2022-23, representing a 25% rise over the same period in the previous year.
 
The influenza vaccination coverage rate for seniors aged 65 or above was 48% whereas that for toddlers and adolescents aged six months to below 18 years was about 40%.