WASHINGTON - CHILD deaths from H1N1 flu were 'shooting up' in the United States, with 19 deaths from influenza reported in recent days, a US health official said on Friday.

'Nineteen more pediatric deaths for influenza were reported to us this week. We're now up to 76 children having died from the 2009 H1N1 virus,' said Anne Schuchat, a senior official at the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

'To put that in context, in the past three years, the total pediatric influenza deaths ranged from 46 - 88. We've already had 76 children dying from the H1N1 virus and it's only the beginning of October,' Ms Schuchat said.

The flu season in the United States runs from August to March; the three previous seasons did not have concurrent outbreaks of seasonal and H1N1 influenza.

Child deaths from the new strain of H1N1 flu had fallen back in the warm summer months after peaking during the spring, said Ms Schuchat.

But they were 'starting to shoot up again' with the onset of the autumn flu season, she said, urging parents to have their children vaccinated against flu. -- AFP