The Department of Health has said that from next Thursday it will no longer try to contain the spread of influenza A (H1N1) in the Republic and will instead try to mitigate the effects of the illness.
The move mirrors a change in strategy announced last week in the UK where authorities are no longer trying to trace contacts of those who test positive for Swine Flu, or to offer contacts antivirals such as Tamiflu, because the virus is spreading so rapidly.
The total number of cases of influenza A (H1N1) reported here to date has climbed to 104.
The Republic is said to be well prepared for the pandemic relative to other European countries, with high stocks of antivirals and an arrangement to ensure people will have access to up to 7.7 million doses of vaccine once its production begins.
Dr Tony Holohan, chief medical officer, said there were now 104 confirmed cases of the condition, with as many as eight patients presenting every day.
“What it (new strategy) does is acknowledge that containment is no longer an effective strategy and that resources are better targeted towards ensuring appropriate treatment and interventions to support the treatment of people that have become cases, as supposed to any real prospect of stopping the transmission through containment,” Mr Holohan said.
“So we’ve taken the decision in principal that we should shift our policy from containment to one of mitigation.”
Prof Bill Hall, chair of Ireland’s National Pandemic Influenza Expert Group, said they expect a significant rise in the numbers coming down with the condition in the autumn and winter.
Under the new treatment phase, due to come into force next Thursday, the anti-viral Tamiflu will be provided free of charge through prescriptions from GPs instead of through public health offices.
Vaccines have also been ordered and the first batch is expected to arrive by the end of August.
In Britain, health officials said today that 14 Britons who had contracted the flu have died and the rapid spread of infection in two areas of the country is close to epidemic level.
The Department of Health said Britain now had 9,718 laboratory-confirmed cases, the third most in the world behind the United States and Mexico.
Britain's chief medical officer Liam Donaldson said the actual number of cases was likely to be higher.
All 14 who have died had underlying health issues and it was not clear in how many cases the patients had died as a direct result of the virus, known as swine flu.
"In London and the West Midlands we are getting pretty close to epidemic levels. We've seen big surges there," Mr Donaldson told BBC TV.
"For the country as a whole, the average is about the level of the flu season but in some parts of the country the levels are getting pretty big."
The World Health Organisation declared on June 11th that the outbreak of the virus was a pandemic and more than 94,500 cases have been reported worldwide.
Additional reporting PA