Nearly 1,000 dead as flu outbreak abates in Germany

BERLIN: This season’s flu outbreak in Germany has passed its peak, but almost 1,000 people were killed by the disease during the period, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said.

In the week of March 19-25, there were 25,216 confirmed cases of influenza — roughly half as many as two weeks earlier, said the RKI, a German government agency for disease control and prevention.

Eastern Germany is currently the worst affected, but the number of infections has fallen across the country.

During the current flu season, a total of around 300,000 people have been reported ill with the disease.

But the actual number is likely significantly higher, since not every flu patient goes to the doctor and only selected practices send pathogen samples to the laboratory.

So far this season, 971 patients have demonstrably died of influenza, of whom 87 per cent were over 60 years old. — dpa