The ongoing seasonal flu epidemic will likely peak next month but no evidence suggests there will be a pandemic as serious as 2009's.

The ongoing seasonal flu epidemic will likely peak next month in most parts of the country, and no evidence suggests there will be a pandemic as serious as 2009's, a leading epidemiologist said on Tuesday.

"The public needs not panic over the increase in flu cases in recent months, given that winter is usually the flu season in China," Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told a flu pandemic symposium staged by the World Bank and the Ministry of Health in Beijing.

But Zeng reminded the public to get seasonal flu vaccinations, as more flu cases are expected in the coming weeks.

Fewer than 5 percent of people on the Chinese mainland have received flu shots - far fewer than the United States' 27 percent, experts pointed out.