Swine flu deaths in UK double as country now has third highest number of cases in the world
By Daniel Martin
10th July 2009
Daily Mail
The number of Britons who have died after contracting swine flu has almost doubled in two days to 14, officials said yesterday.
London is days away from an epidemic with the West Midlands not far behind.
Britain has the third highest number of confirmed cases of the virus in the world, just behind Mexico - where the outbreak began.
Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson said yesterday that 14 had died so far of what was believed to be swine flu.
He would not give details of where the five latest cases were. All had underlying health problems.
Sir Liam said there were 335 people in hospital in England with swine flu of whom 43 are in critical care.
Lab tests showed that yesterday there were 9,718 confirmed cases in the UK. This was just behind Mexico, with 10,262 cases. The U.S. is in the lead with 33,902 confirmed cases.
However, Sir Liam admitted it was unknown how many in the UK were suffering from the virus as many would be treating themselves at home rather than contacting their GP.
We do know something about the people seeking help from the NHS but there will be many other people who look after themselves,' he said.
He said latest data from 100 GP surgeries around England showed that about 27,000 people per week were being diagnosed as having a flu-like illness. Of these, an estimated 8,000 will have swine flu.
The number of flu cases being seen every week works out at 51.9 per 100,000 people.
However, in London the rate is 180 per 100,000 - just short of the 200 cases that denotes an epidemic. In the West Midlands the rate is 140 per 100,000 cases.
Last week, Health Secretary Andy Burnham warned that by the end of August some 100,000 people will be coming down with the virus every day.
He moved the country on to treatment mode, which means those with flu symptoms will be encouraged to quarantine themselves at home and get a friend to pick up anti-viral drugs for them.
Sir Liam said that was still the most accurate prediction to date of what will happen. It is widely expected that the number of cases will see a surge in the winter months when flu is more prevalent.
About 15 per cent of calls to NHS Direct are currently about colds and flu, he added.
Today it emerged that a third case had been recorded of the swine flu virus becoming resistant to Tamiflu, the major drug to combat it.
The new case was in Hong Kong, to add to further cases in Japan and Denmark.
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