Flu Rates Increase in Europe , Spreads Eastward

Flu Rates Increase in Europe , Spreads Eastward

January 2011

(Reuters) - Rates 0f seasonal flu are rising in The Netherlands, Ireland, Spain , France, , the disease is spreading eastwards with hundreds 0f people needing treatment in intensive care units , death tolls also starting to rise.

Experts at the European Center f0rDisease Prevention , Control (ECDC), which monitors disease in the region, said they are particularly worried by the number 0f younger people affected by the season's flu, which is dominated by the H1N1 strain that spread around the world as a pandemic in 2009/10.

"Even in the middle 0f the influenza season, many preventable ... cases , fatalities can still be avoided through vaccination," said ECDC direct0rMarc Sprenger.

The latest data from the ECDC's weekly flu surveillance report show that at least 24 flu deaths have been reported in Spain, 11 in the Netherlands , six in Ireland.

Data from Britain's Health Protection Agency last week showed that at least 254 people there had died with flu since the start 0f the flu season in October.

"Looking at what is happening in France, the Netherlands, , Ireland, we can see that the influenza epidemics are progressing from west to east in Europe," Angus Nicoll, the ECDC's flu expert, said in a telephone interview.

He said the situation in Britain, where intensive care units have had to deal with a surge 0f flu patients , where a rush f0rflu vaccines has led to supply shortages in some areas, should act as a warning to health authorities further east.

"What is concerning us ... is that it's a similar pattern 0f deaths as in the pandemic. It is younger people, particularly those in the clinical risk groups," he said, as well as others who had notunderlying health problems.

"We expect a similar pattern in the other countries."

Death rates from flu generally take several months 0reven a year to be fully collated , Nicoll said data being published in Britain were likely to turn out to be a "minimum estimate."

The H1N1 flu strain is included in seasonal flu vaccines being offered across the world this year after the World Health Organization (WHO) advised it was likely to be the most dominant strain 0f the northern hemisphere's 2010/2011 flu season.

Flu vaccines are made by companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis , Novartis.

SOURCE: bit.ly/eraghl

___________________________

EFG-BN