A 65-year-old local man with chronic diseases died of influenza on Thursday, the Health Bureau (SSM) has announced.
According to an SSM statement on Friday, the patient came down with a fever and cough on April 30, after which he sought treatment at a private medical institution, which the statement did not identify.
The statement said that the man began to develop shortness of breath on Wednesday night when he was also coughing up blood-tinged phlegm, after which he went to the bureau’s Tuberculosis Prevention and Treatment Centre on Thursday for treatment where he was diagnosed with double pneumonia.
Consequently, the statement said, the man was taken by ambulance to the emergency department of the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre where he tested positive for the influenza A virus.
The man was transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU) and put on a ventilator when he was in a critical condition, before he died on Thursday night, according to the statement.
The statement said that the man had not received a seasonal influenza jab. None of his family members had come down with similar symptoms at the time of Friday’s statement.
The public hospital, informally known as Peak Hospital in Chinese, reported the case to the Health Bureau on Friday.
As of yesterday, Macau has recorded five fatalities caused by influenza so far this year.
