Published 3 July 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2721
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b2721

News

UK government predicts 100 000 new A/H1N1 flu cases a day by September

Daniel Henderson

1 BMJ

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The UK government is planning for a rapid rise in the number of cases of A/H1N1 flu and is limiting provision of antiviral drugs to people with symptoms, while excluding asymptomatic contacts of infected people. The move comes after the revelation that up to 100 000 new cases of the infection could emerge each day by the end of August.

Laboratory based diagnosis of swine flu is to be stopped, and diagnosis should instead be made clinically by GPs. The government advises doctors to stop routine swabbing and tracing of contacts.

Doctors should not limit prescription of the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu) to patients they think are at especially high risk but should provide it to all patients with symptoms, because the exact risk profile of the virus is unclear, government advice says.

However, Andy Burnham, the health secretary, warned that conventional risk groups (people aged over 65 or under . . . [Full text of this article]


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