Flu numbers rising in UK

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The rate of flu-like illness diagnosed in England and Wales climbed last week, indicating the pandemic virus may bring a summer wave of influenza.

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Lingering Pandemic Virus Brings Summer Flu to England, Wales

By Jason Gale

June 25 (Bloomberg) -- The rate of flu-like illness diagnosed in England and Wales climbed last week, indicating the pandemic virus may bring a summer wave of influenza.

There were 11.2 cases of influenza-like illnesses per 100,000 people in the week ended June 21, the London-based Royal College of General Practitioners said in a weekly report on its Web site yesterday. That compares with 6.5 per 100,000 the previous week.

The incidence of flu was highest in people aged 15 to 44 years and in the central region, the college said. In England and Wales, confirmed cases of the new H1N1 virus, known as swine flu, more than doubled to 2,550 yesterday from a week earlier, the Health Protection Agency said.

“A pandemic virus is a novel virus and one to which most people don’t have immunity,” Angus Nicoll, head of the influenza program at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm, told reporters yesterday. “That means it is very easy for it to circulate, and it is obviously capable of doing that outside the influenza season.”

Influenza is more common in winter because virus particles persist longer in the air during colder, drier weather. The bug is also transmitted more easily in winter because people tend to huddle together indoors.

The World Health Organization said the pandemic virus is reported to have infected 55,867 people in more than 90 countries, killing 238 of them, since its discovery in Mexico and the U.S. in April.

Quicker Spread

Transmission of the bug, which causes little more than a fever and cough in most cases, is likely to accelerate as the flu season begins in the Southern Hemisphere and again when it returns in the Northern Hemisphere, the World Bank said in a report this week. As many as 1.5 million people die in a normal flu season worldwide, and even a mild new flu might add another 1.4 million deaths, the Washington-based lender said.

In England and Wales, the incidence of flu-like illness last week was above the 10-year average for summer, according to the college’s report. Flu typically peaks in these countries in January, and the rate reported by the college’s flu surveillance network, comprising 435 doctors, was the highest in six weeks.

Higher rates don’t accord “with any substantial spread of influenza-like illness,” the college said, adding that rates of 30 to 100 per 100,000 people are usual when seasonal influenza viruses are circulating. Rates exceeding 100 represent above- average influenza activity and are “exceptional” when above 200, it said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net