The Gold Coast Bulletin

Horror flu season proves fatal in SA

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SOUTH Australia is in the grip of an “unpreceden­ted” flu season, with 17 deaths and more than 12,300 confirmed cases so far this year.

SA Health says the 12,339 cases in 2019 compare to 1348 at the same time last year but are the “tip of the iceberg” in terms of the number of cases in the community.

“This is an unpreceden­ted year. We have never seen influenza in these numbers at this time of the year,” chief medical officer Paddy Phillips said yesterday.

“We know that the reported cases is the tip of the iceberg.”

He said only time would tell if the high number of cases would continue through winter.

But he was hopeful the early spike and the high take-up of the vaccine would result in the numbers tapering off.

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