Swine Flu Cases Almost Doubled in England, Government Says
The number of new swine flu cases in England almost doubled in the past week to 53,000 from 27,000 the previous week, the country’s top doctor said today.
The health department’s updated estimates suggest that 5 percent of the workforce may be absent from their jobs and 1.5 million people a week may be ill during the peak of the pandemic this winter. As many as 35,000 people could be hospitalized, 15 percent of them in intensive-care beds, placing pressure on the National Health Service into early 2010.
“What we’re starting to worry about is partly the peak that we might see this flu season, but we’re also starting to worry about the sustained pressure over the winter that the NHS might face,” [England’s Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson said] “The NHS has never before had a run from the middle of July right through to March or April with intensive infectious disease activity like this, not in modern times anyway.”
Andrea Gerlin
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