Viral outbreak claims the life of a four-year-old girl as hospitalisations soar in Queensland - and it's going to get worse Queensland's flu outbreak claimed the life of a young girl The health minister urged resident to vaccinate READ MORE: Scientists reveal the age that the body starts 'breaking down' - when risks of Alzheimer's and heart disease rocket By Ashley Nickel For Daily Mail Australia Published: 00:10, 15 August 2024 | Updated: 00:19, 15 August 2024 e-mail 123 shares 5 View comments A four-year-old girl is one of 72 Queenslanders who've died from the flu so far this year with experts warning the worst is yet to come. Records show 4,162 Queenslanders have been hospitalised with the flu since January - smashing the number of hospitalisations throughout all of 2019 by 1,000. The uptick has been attributed to vaccine hesitancy following the Covid pandemic.
Only 10 per cent of the number of patients hospitalised have received their flu vaccine - despite the state government making them free. Of the 72 deaths recorded so far, 13 were aged between 40 to 64 while 58 were over the age of 65. The four-year-old girl was the only child death recorded, with 670 children hospitalised with the flu.
The remaining hospitalisations included 1,584 adults aged 18 to 65 and 1,908 elderly people. Only 1,686,800 Queenslanders over the age of six months have received their flu vaccination, about 30 per cent of the eligible population. The state's health minister Shannon Fentiman urged Qu.