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Influenza Claims Life of Second Child This Season, From Quebec

Posted on: Tuesday, 1 May 2007, 18:00 CDT

TORONTO (CP) - Influenza has claimed the life of a second Canadian child this flu season, this time a youngster from Quebec.

The death was reported in the latest issue of FluWatch, the national weekly influenza surveillance report compiled by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The death occurred in week 16 of flu season - April 15 to 21 - the most recent for which data are available.

The child was between the ages of five and nine, and was reported to have had other medical conditions. The child's gender and location within the province were not given. Public health authorities typically don't give out specific information to safeguard patient confidentiality.

The child was infected with an influenza B virus.

A child from British Columbia, also between five and nine years of age, died from influenza in late January or early February. That death was attributed to infection with influenza A virus.

Though the latest FluWatch bulletin suggests flu season is coming to a close across the country, there were four new confirmed pediatric hospitalizations during the week.

Of 318 children hospitalized for influenza-related illness this season, 20 per cent were aged zero to five months old; 31 per cent were aged six to 23 month olds; 24 per cent were aged two to four years; 16 per cent were aged five to nine and nine per cent were between 10 and 16 years of age.

During week 16 of the flu season, six children died from influenza-related illnesses in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said in their weekly flu surveillance report.

The CDC said it has received 49 reports of influenza-associated deaths in children during the current flu season.

The number of pediatric influenza deaths appears to fluctuate with the flu season.

But public health officials in both Canada and the United States have only really been trying to capture precise data on pediatric flu deaths since the 2003-04 flu season, during which a high number of children died from flu or its complications. In the U.S. that year, 153 pediatric deaths were recorded.

Canada recorded five pediatric flu deaths in the 2005-06 season and two in 2004-05.

Source: Canadian Press

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