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Health chief warns over flu deaths of healthy people
Anna Davis, Education Correspondent14 Aug 2009
Half of all the swine flu deaths in the country have been in London, new figures show.
Two more Londoners with the virus died in the past week, bringing the total in the capital to 22. Forty four people with the virus have died across England, as well as five in Scotland.
The two latest patients to die in the capital were adults with underlying health conditions. But datum from the Health Protection Agency shows 21 per cent of all swine flu deaths have been in otherwise healthy people.
Across the whole country last week eight more people with swine flu died, including the two in London. Five of those were otherwise healthy people.
Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson said: "We are concerned about the rise of deaths in healthy people.
"In a minority of people it causes serious illness and death and not all those people have previous underlying conditions. The message from the data is we should not make cavalier statements about it being a mild illness." The Government has revealed plans to vaccinate about 11 million priority patients against swine flu.
The first 300,000 doses of the vaccine are expected to arrive by the end of this month and the first patients should be vaccinated by October. By December 54.6million doses are scheduled to arrive. But Sir Liam warned that Baxters, one of the firms making the vaccine, may not be able to deliver as much as originally promised.
An estimated 4.7 million people aged between six months and 65 years with chronic illnesses will be first in line for the vaccine. Second on the priority list are pregnant women, followed by people who live with individuals with weak immune systems, and then over-65s with underlying health conditions.
About two million frontline health and social care workers will also be vaccinated.
Many people had expected children to be among the first wave of priority groups. But experts said that while children have been the worst hit in terms of the number of cases it is mainly those with underlying health conditions who have developed complications.
The number of people working on the swine flu hotline is being cut after a fall in the number of people with the virus. Originally between 1,550 and 1,650 people were answering the phones, but by 23 August the figure will drop to between 200 and 600. There were an estimated 25,000 new cases of swine flu in England in the past week compared with 30,000 the previous week.
City law firms plan to jump the queue for swine flu jabs ahead of priority patients. One private doctor who is offering the jabs said: "They cannot afford to have a lot of people off sick."
Reader views (1)
So giving a Flu Jab to a baby, as 1 size fits all is deemed to be OK. Doctors don't even know what the jabs consist of, but it has been passed by Gov statician so thats alright then.
- William, Hay~Heath UK, 29/09/2009 12:57
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