A three-year-old boy with a long-term illness was in critical condition in the children’s intensive care unit at Tuen Mun Hospital after testing positive for influenza A(H1). The Centre for Health Protection said his diagnoses included influenza with an acute asthma exacerbation, acute necrotising encephalopathy and septic shock.
He developed a fever and cough on 20 October, then mild shortness of breath the next day and was taken to a private clinic. His condition worsened on 22 October. At Tuen Mun Hospital’s emergency department he briefly lost consciousness and was resuscitated before being admitted to intensive care. The centre said he had not received the 2026/27 seasonal influenza vaccine.
The centre reported 26 serious paediatric influenza cases this season. Twenty patients had recovered and been discharged, two were in serious condition, two were in critical condition and two had died.
Over the preceding four weeks, influenza test positivity ranged from 10.04% to 11.61%, above a baseline of 4.94%, the centre’s director said. Influenza-related admissions to public hospitals were between 0.46 and 0.67 cases per 10,000 people, also above the baseline of 0.27 per 10,000.
The 2026/27 seasonal vaccination programme began on 17 September. The centre said school outreach had taken place at about 1,000 schools and was expected to finish before mid-December, around two weeks earlier than the previous year.