UK Swine Flu Deaths Reach 50

Deaths from the H1Ni1 swine flu virus continue to increase as workers return after the New Year break and infection spreads.

The latest figures from the Health Protection Agency show 11 more people across the UK have died from flu this winter, taking the total to 50.

Of these, 45 died with swine flu and five with another strain, flu type B.

The deaths are mostly among children and young adults, with five cases in the under-fives and eight cases among those aged five to 14 and another 33 cases are in people aged 15 to 64.

Prime Minister David Cameron said urgent discussions were being held about how to build up supplies while suggesting that older stocks of the vaccine could be used to plug the gap.

He has admitted that some hospitals and doctors are running low on the vaccine to treat the virus.

"GPs are responsible for ordering in advance the vaccine which they did this year, and ordered very large stocks of flu vaccine," he said at Prime Minister's Questions.

"Clearly those stocks are being used up and in some places there have been some shortages."

But people in the UK seem to be better informed that in previous outbreaks as the number of people looking up flu information on the NHS website increased tenfold compared to last year.

Figures from NHS Choices show the site www.nhs.uk was clicked onto more than 20 million times during winter, and that there were 50,000 searches for flu information compared to just 3,800 in 2009.

The figures also reveal that apart from flu, pneumonia, diabetes and pregnancy were among the most popular pages on the site. The busiest single day for the site was 13 December when there were 300,000 visits.

Health Minister Simon Burns said: "NHS Choices has been able to provide timely and accurate information about flu and other conditions during winter months.

"The Internet is a great resource for health-related information as long as people can use sources they can trust. Those people who log onto NHS Choices are often in a better position to use health services appropriately," he said, underlining that, to try to reduce the spread of flu, the 'Catch it, Bin it, Kill it' campaign was launched on Saturday in the form of national press and radio adverts. The campaign reminds people to practice good respiratory and hand hygiene.

(BMcC/GK)