The Chinese mainland reported 648 deaths from the A/H1N1 influenza as of December 31, the Ministry of Health said on Saturday.

More than 120,000 A/H1N1 flu cases were reported up to the last day of 2009, 110,000 cases of which had recovered, the ministry said.

A/H1N1 accounted for 85.9 percent of flu cases, a minor drop from November, it said.

The ministry said there were fewer cases of large outbreak in schools of major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai last month, but the epidemic still spread in the countryside and urban communities.

There was also a drop in the weekly reported number of new cases but the number of serious cases and deaths, especially those of chronic patients, obese people and pregnant women, increased sharply, it said.

As of December 31, more than 49.9 million people nationwide had been inoculated against the A/H1N1 flu, it said, adding about 12 people for every 100,000 were suspected of having adverse reaction related to the vaccine, similar to data from the World Health Organization.

The ministry said last month that China would face increasing pressure of flu control in the next two months due to nationwide flow of large population during the New Year and Spring Festival holidays.

(Xinhua News Agency January 3, 2010)