Hong Kong’s summer flu season has entered its 16th week, with activity still very high and no clear downward trend, Centre for Health Protection controller Edwin Tsui said. He expects this year’s season to last longer than last year’s, which ended at about week 18.
Flu activity began rising in late June and peaked in early September. Influenza A H3 viruses were dominant from the end of June, before H1 viruses took over in August. Tsui linked the change in dominant strains to the prolonged season.
Centre figures show 25 children have been admitted to intensive care or died from severe flu this year, matching the total for all of 2025. Two children have died, including a 12-year-old girl. More than 80 per cent of this year’s 25 serious cases involved children who were unvaccinated or had chronic illnesses.
The adult toll is also higher than last year: 841 adults have been admitted to intensive care or died, compared with 490 in 2025. Over the past month, flu was detected in 10 to 12 per cent of respiratory samples, nearly double the baseline. Hospitalisation rates were 0.4 to 0.7 per 10,000 people, two to three times the benchmark.
More than 900,000 vaccine doses have been given since the programme launched last month, but that is 10 per cent fewer than at the same point last year. Uptake fell across all age groups; vaccination rates among children aged two to five and six to 11 each dropped by nearly five percentage points, while the rate among older people living in the community fell by 1.8 points.
Tsui urged people not to underestimate flu and called on older people, young children and those with chronic illnesses to get vaccinated promptly.