HONG KONG Public hospitals in Hong Kong are struggling with a long flu outbreak that has killed more than 200 people since May.

In the first two weeks of the month, "some 1,000 patients needed to be admitted to general medical wards of public hospitals every day", the South China Morning Post reported, quoting Dr Cheung Wai Lun, cluster services director at the Hospital Authority.

"Usually, such a situation would last about two or three days and we would be able to cope with it. But this year, it lasted for more than 10."

Occupancy rates at medical wards have been above 100 per cent since July 17, the newspaper reported.

Since May, 205 adults - many of them elderly - and three children have died of the flu. Some experts think a mutation in a flu strain might be the cause of the crisis.