Why Australia may be 'woefully unprepared' for flu season

Melbourne

AUSTRALIA'S carefree attitude toward preventive medicine may have met its match: the flu.

The country is reeling from a potent flu season that has had a historically high number of cases in some states, and the resulting fatalities have raised growing alarms. Last week, an 8-year-old girl from Melbourne died from influenza complications - just weeks after a 30-year-old father passed away after getting the flu.

So far this year, more than 166,000 cases of the flu have been reported through September, a sharp increase from 91,000 for all of last year and more than double the average caseload in the last five years, according to t…