Only one in ten people complaining of flu actually have swine flu By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor
Published: 7:30AM BST 21 Aug 2009
Liam Donaldson:
Britian's Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson 'second wave of swine flu impossible to predict' Photo: REUTERS
Sample testing of people suspected of having the H1N1 swine flu bug have shown that only 10 per cent actually have it.
Testing everyone is not feasible now as there have been hundreds of thousands of cases over the summer and random samples are being tested to check if the disease is changing in any way or whether resistant to Tamiflu is emerging.
Last month 24 per cent of suspected cases tested were positive for H1N1 and the drop has raised speculation that skivers are using swine flu as an excuse to call in sick to work during the warm weather.
Earlier this month businesses warned that workers are using swine flu as an excuses to extend their summer holidays and were taking advantage of the flu line.
Justin McCracken, chief executive of the Health Protection Agency, said: "We see this every year, as the number of cases comes down so we see the samples of swabs that test positive comes down."
The number of cases of swine flu being diagnosed has dropped from a peak of 110,000 in the week beginning July 23rd to 11,000 last week.
Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, added: "Even when you have a lot of flu around it (the proportion of positive tests) is around 50 per cent."
Overall calls and web hits to the National Pandemic Flu Service have dropped also but there Mondays are consistently the busiest day of the week, even though the service runs at weekends.
Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, pointed out that Mondays are traditionally the busiest day for GPs as people hold off contacting health services over the weekend.
GP consultation rates about flu have now dropped below baseline levels, used to monitor seasonal flu activity, but this does not mean that swine flu has gone away, Sir Liam said.
He said there were 263 people in hospital at 8am on Wednesday and 30 of them were in intensive care. "This is very exceptional at this time of year, to have people with flu in hospital and in intensive care.
"Seeing a declining pattern doesn't mean it has completely gone away."
The total number of deaths associated with swine flu was confirmed at 54, up from 44 last week. This does not mean ten people died in a week, rather that investigations into whether the death is linked to swine flu have now been completed.
The under fives remain the age group most likely to be admitted to hospital.
Sir Liam said a second wave of swine flu is expected but that it is 'almost impossible' to predict when this will happen.
He said during the 1957/8 pandemic when the first case was reported in June, slightly later than in this flu outbreak, and the largest peak was in September with cases rising sharply after the schools went back. There was a second smaller peak at Christmas and the New Year.
However during the last pandemic, in 1968/70, when the first case was found in Britain in August, there was a peak in the Spring of the following year and then a very large peak at Christmas of the second year.
Sir Liam said the swine flu outbreak could behave like either of these pandemics or do something different.
He added that in Australia, where the winter flu season is coming to an end, swine flu has behaved much like ordinary seasonal flu in the pattern of cases, although there has been more severe cases in younger people than normal.
Vaccinations are due to begin in October and people in the priority groups, which include pregnant women and those with serious underlying health conditions, will be contacted by health officials once the immunisation is ready.
The vaccines, being supplied by GlaxoSmithKline and Baxter, are in trials at the moment.
Frontline health and social care staff will be offered the vaccine.
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