HONG KONG, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- To prevent the spread of influenza, the Education Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government announced here Wednesday that kindergartens and elementary schools will start the Chinese New Year holiday earlier on Feb. 8.

The Education Bureau announced the arrangement, which also applied to childcare centers and special schools, on the advice of the Center for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health of the HKSAR government, which urged the public to continue their vigilance against seasonal influenza and adopt strict personal hygiene.

"Although there was no further increase in a number of surveillance parameters in the past week, we anticipate that the seasonal influenza activity will remain at a high level for some time," Wong Ka-hing, the Controller of the CHP, said during a press conference to report on the latest situation of the winter influenza season in Hong Kong.

"The predominating virus of this winter influenza season has been influenza B. Epidemiological experience shows that children are relatively more affected in seasons with predominance of influenza B virus, and this can be reflected by the large number of outbreaks of influenza-like illness in schools in this season," Wong said.

As at Feb. 6, 398 influenza-like illness outbreaks have been recorded by the CHP in the current season, exceeding the number recorded in the same duration in past influenza seasons. Majority of the outbreaks occurred in primary schools and kindergartens or child care centers, followed by secondary schools and residential care homes for the elderly.

Regarding the severe influenza cases, the data indicated that they mainly affected the elderly. A total of 203 adult cases (115 deaths) of intensive care unit admission/death with laboratory confirmation of influenza were recorded from Jan. 7 to Feb. 6.

About 67 percent of the severe adult cases involved elderly persons aged 65 or above while 74 percent of the patients had pre-existing chronic diseases.

As for children aged under 18, 12 severe cases were reported as at noon Wednesday, including two deaths. Among the cases, 11, or 92 percent did not receive seasonal influenza vaccination for the current season.