Swine flu infection rate doubles as over 5,000 fall ill in last week

RATES OF swine flu infection have doubled in the past week, with an estimated 5,000-plus cases treated by GPs already in 2011…

RATES OF swine flu infection have doubled in the past week, with an estimated 5,000-plus cases treated by GPs already in 2011.

The numbers of patients hospitalised with flu have also increased threefold in a week. Some 114 patients had been hospitalised up to Wednesday night and 33 patients had been admitted to intensive care, including at least two pregnant women.

A week ago, the numbers hospitalised since the beginning of the flu season in October stood at 36 and just five had been admitted to intensive care. Most of those admitted to intensive care had not received the flu vaccine. A total of 26 patients remain in intensive care.

The latest figures from the national Health Protection Surveillance Centre show rates of flu-like illness increased to 120.6 per 100,000 of the population in the week ending January 2nd compared to 59.5 per 100,000 the week before.

READ MORE

At a press briefing yesterday, the State’s chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan, said there had been no confirmed deaths from flu here to date this season. There have been 50 deaths from flu in the UK this season, including 45 from swine flu.

Dr Holohan said infection rates could continue to increase over the next two to four weeks before levelling off, but he stressed rates of infection were still not as high as during the swine flu pandemic when they reached over 200 per 100,000 of the population. When rates increase in coming weeks they “could well take us beyond or up close to where we were previously”, he said.

Dr Kevin Kelleher, head of health protection with the Health Service Executive (HSE), urged those in at-risk groups, including pregnant women and those with chronic health conditions to get the seasonal flu vaccine, which this year contains protection against swine flu and two other flu viruses also in circulation. About 11 per cent of the flu cases to date were caused by influenza B, which is milder than H1N1.

He said schools would be issued with reminders, when they reopened next week, on the steps they should take to prevent the spread of flu.

It has emerged that patients with swine flu are being prescribed Tamiflu in boxes which suggest the antiviral is out of date. Explaining the practice, the HSE said the European Medicines Agency had extended its shelf life by two years.

Meanwhile, the HSE says those who got the H1N1 pandemic vaccine last year and those who contracted swine flu last year would still have immunity. But there was “no clear scientific answer” as to how long immunity from last year’s vaccine lasted, “but from general principles, as the virus has not shown any genetic drift, it is likely there will be some immunity still available”. At-risk groups are urged to get the seasonal vaccine.

The latest figures from Northern Ireland, released yesterday, show a similar trend. The North’s Public Health Agency reported that the number treated for swine flu rose from 136 in the second last week of 2010 to 185 in the last week.