John Oxford:killer flu to grip England

[tetano]

BRITAIN is facing one of its worst winter flu *outbreaks in years, according to the *country?s leading expert on the virus.

Professor John Oxford said a big leap in cases in Australia in recent months points to what is likely to happen here.

Many Britons have little immunity after two years of relatively limited outbreaks.

Despite this, the Department of Health last week announced there would be no high-profile flu awareness campaign this winter.

Public health leaders have condemned the inaction as ?irresponsible? and ?naive?.

Professor Oxford, a virologist at Barts and The London School of Medicine and *Dentistry, is a world-renowned expert on flu. He warned that the disease posed a threat to everyone, not just high-risk groups.

He said: ?I go to Australia every summer to monitor what?s going on and it was pretty bad ? hospitals were filling up.

...

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/273707/Killer-flu-to-grip-Britain/

[Giuseppe]

Re: John Oxford:killer flu to grip England

As pointed out by the latest WHO influenza update, overall this year southern hemisphere winter season has been much more quiet than last year, with some exception - for example in Vietnam, where H1N1 (2009) is circulating widely with a number of severe cases.

For comparison, 2010-2011 winter season in norther hemisphere, especially in European region, has seen an high intensity circulation of H1N1 (2009) but in north America the H3 strain was predominant.

Predictions about incoming winter season influenza activity have little chances of being confirmed at the end because the nearly unpredictable nature of the viruses and the other variable involved in the epidemics such as winter, host immunity, vaccination coverage, etc.

For the latest WHO influenza report see at: http://www.who.int/influenza/surveil.../en/index.html (September 23 2011)

(IOH)