THE NUMBER of deaths across Europe from the swine flu pandemic may turn out to be similar to what has been seen during some seasonal influenza periods, according to an expert with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
However, Prof Angus Nicoll, influenza co-ordinator at ECDC, said yesterday that deaths from pandemic flu would be among different groups than normally affected by seasonal flu. They would be among younger people.
Speaking at a seminar at ECDC’s headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, he said there were up to 40,000 deaths each year in Europe from seasonal flu, which was “not a trivial number” but most of these were older people.
He said if somebody aged 75 dies of flu it does not appear in newspapers. However, if somebody aged 25 and pregnant died it was more likely to be publicised.
He said the pandemic had not peaked anywhere in Europe yet, with rates of infection now rising in several countries, especially in western Europe.
Each wave of a pandemic usually lasted about 16 weeks, he said, and there would normally only be one wave in a season.
However, he warned it was possible that we could face a wave of seasonal flu early in the new year when the pandemic waves have passed. If this happened deaths from influenza overall would increase significantly over the winter.
Prof Nicoll also said it was difficult to have a clear picture of exact rates of infections from the pandemic virus in different European countries as many people who have contracted swine flu could be asymptomatic.
“There’s a lot of asymptomatic infections; people who’ve been infected and they don’t have any symptoms at all.”
A risk assessment by the ECDC of Europe indicates most cases of swine flu have been mild but adults and children can experience severe disease or even death without any obvious underlying condition. “These comprise between 20 and 30 per cent of the deaths attributable to influenza,” it says in a report due out today.
Meanwhile, Dr Kari Johansen Lunden, an ECDC expert on vaccines, said she was feeling very “confident” about the safety profile of the swine flu vaccine now that at least one million people have been vaccinated in Sweden.
She said while five deaths had been reported in people who received the vaccine, these deaths were in people who already had serious health conditions.
A postmortem on one of those who died proved no link with the vaccine, and results of tests on the other four were awaited, but it was expected these would rule out a link with the vaccine.
Pandemrix, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, is the vaccine being used in Sweden. It is also one of two vaccines being used in Ireland, and is the one now being distributed to GPs across the State for patients in at-risk groups aged six months to 65 years.
Dr Johansen Lunden also said some of those who got one dose of the vaccine now would be followed up to determine if a booster shot might be required later.
Meanwhile Liz Woodeson, director of England’s H1N1 vaccination programme, said it would be the end of next week before all GPs in England received supplies of the vaccine. It had been decided to vaccinate healthcare workers first in England, and no decision had been made yet on whether to vaccinate the whole population.
Ireland plans to offer vaccines to everyone in due course.