Eleven persons died in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the past few months as a consequence of the seasonal flu, with thousands recorded cases with influenza virus symptoms, according to healthcare authorities.

Maja Kojovic, an expert assistant at the Healthcare Institute of Federation (FBiH) entity, told news agencies that epidemiology monitoring of the seasonal flu in this region is on throughout the October-May period every year.

“According to data received so far, the flu is still keeping moderate intensity with a slight increase over the past three weeks. Total of 294 samples have been tester at the Sarajevo University Clinical Centre lab of which 117 were positive to the influenza virus, with the dominance of the A-type flu virus, subtype H1N1,” she said, explaining this was the virus type wrongly called ‘swine flu’ and is actually a type of the flu commonly spread in this area.

Kojovic said that 16,093 cases with symptoms similar to flu have been recorded in the FBiH and nine death cases.

Vaccination is the best prevention, she stressed.

As for Republika Srpska (RS), the second of Bosnia's two semi-autonomous regions, its healthcare authorities recorded two death cases caused by the seasonal flu virus.

Their Healthcare Institute also recorded thousands of those who were hospitalised across the region with the flu symptoms or similar.