1.5-year-old girl dies of flu complications in 3rd death in 2 days
Number of casualties from disease this season climbs to 11, with several others still hospitalized in critical condition, including a month-old baby
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
An eighteen-month-old girl died of complications of the flu at Rehovot’s Kaplan Medical Center on Wednesday in the third death related to the disease in two days.
The child arrived at the hospital unconscious and in critical condition. Doctors were forced to declare the girl’s death shortly after her arrival. Her blood test showed that she had contracted the flu.
Israel has been hit with a lethal bout of flu, which has already killed an additional 10 people during the 2019-2020 season.
On Tuesday, a 19-year-old young man at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center and a 14-year-old girl at Beersheba’s Sheba Medical Center died as a result of flu complications.
Earlier Wednesday, a month-old baby apparently suffering from the flu virus was rushed to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in critical condition. Doctors were able to subsequently stabilize the boy.
The 2019-2020 season has also seen roughly 100 Israelis seriously ill from the disease — a significant increase from the 2018-2019 season which saw 45 seriously ill and 17 deaths, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
A year earlier, 37 Israelis died of the flu, the ministry said.
The Health Ministry on Tuesday called on Israelis to get vaccinated against the flu, lamenting that just 15.7 percent of the public has done so this season — a drop from 17.2% last year and 18.1% the year before that.
On Wednesday, television reports said there had been a rush for vaccines, with clinics reporting double the amount of patients compared to days earlier.
The Times of Israel Community.