Off the wire
• (Sports Focus)Germany remain trendsetters despite defeat  • Chicago agricultural commodities close mixed  • Canadian stocks slip as crude and resources fall  • Alleged Mexican con man suffers multiple "deaths"  • Update: Morocco inaugurates Chinese-built cable-stayed bridge  • Ford's China sales up 6 percent in first half  • Urgent: 20 killed in suicide bombings in central Iraq  • UN mission head in South Sudan to visit Wau on Saturday  • Global per capital fish consumption rises above 20 kilograms a year  • Griezmann scores twice to lift hosts France into Euro 2016 final  
You are here: 　 Home

74 die from swine flu in Ecuador so far in 2016

Xinhua, July 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

Ecuador has now seen 74 deaths and 691 further cases of the AH1N1 flu virus in 2016, according to the latest figures released by the Ministry of Public Health on Thursday.

This number of victims is still lower than that for the same period in 2013 when an AH1N1 epidemic had left 114 dead.

This year's spread of the virus, also known as swine flu, has so far killed 11 percent of those having contracted it.

The virus usually attacks the respiratory tract and causes fever, headaches, bone and muscle pain and intense coughing.

With the epidemic surging again, the ministry banned the open sale of anti-flu medicine at pharmacies in May to prevent people from self-medicating as soon as they present flu symptoms.

In May, the government also bought 300,000 doses of flu vaccine, which are mainly being distributed in the coastal provinces of Manabi and Esmeraldas, which were severely affected by the April 16 earthquake. Enditem