The Department of Health (DOH) has purchased 3 million doses of vaccine to combat seasonal flu this year, with inoculations slated to kick off in October, DOH Minister Yaung Chih-liang said yesterday.

37-year-old man died of influenza A (H1N1) three days ago, bringing the number of H1N1 deaths in Taiwan to 46 since the outbreak of the virus early last year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.

Influenza A(H1N1) seems to have adapted well to Taiwan's hot weather, with more people laid out by the subtype of the A-strain virus of the flu in the sweltering month of July, an official at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Tuesday.

The United States may provide an incubating ground for some flu strains, helping them migrate to warmer climates, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

Hospital emergency rooms across Taiwan were crowded with patients suffering the effects of the cold, wet weather during the Chinese New Year holiday, according to local media reports.

Following reports of the third confirmed death related to the novel A(H1N1) virus as a result of an ineffective rapid influenza diagnostic test, health authorities yesterday said that in future, provided that symptoms are present, the antiviral drug Tamiflu should be prescribed whether or not results come back negative.

Approximately 200 students attending Feng Chia University are vomiting and suffering from diarrhea, believed to be caused by a highly transmissible virus, Taichung's Public Bureau of Health (PBH) said yesterday.

A unique strain of swine flu is the suspected killer of dozens of people in Mexico, where authorities closed schools, museums, libraries and theaters in the capital on Friday to try to contain an outbreak that has spurred concerns of a global flu epidemic.

A six-year-old Egyptian boy has died of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the 24th human fatality of the disease in Egypt, state news agency MENA said on Tuesday.

Scientists in Hong Kong and the United States have identified a synthetic compound which appears to be able to stop the replication of influenza viruses, including the H5N1 bird flu virus.