Ten deaths in the north west

FOR some reason Dr Ruth Hussey, the north west director of public health, has finally relented to tell the press how many people have died from swine flu in the north west: It's 10. Well done to the Manchester Evening News for obtaining this data. But given the small number, one wonders why she was so scared of telling the press? It seems to be a reaction to the very sad death of a fit and healthy 24-year-old woman, Louise Jones, whose death in Greater Manchester has just been made public by the family. Dr Hussey rightly reaffirms that despite the tragedy of this event the virus is usually mild and deaths rare. Did she fear a 'We're all going to die" type headline? I've not seen any reckless reporting by the media - rather the opposite. It might be too much to ask how many of those 10 deaths occurred in Cumbria but it is top of my list of questions for Prof Ashton, Cumbria's medical director.
So why all the fuss if there are so few deaths? Because the government has warned of 19,000 deaths over the winter and it would be useful to know if only women were dying or only people in their 20s were dying or if only cyclists living in Whitehaven are dying. They're not. But without any information, how do we know?! And why are medical authorities so scared of releasing even basic data?

• Cumbria swine flu information.
  

The young and healthy

There was some interesting data in The Guardian last Thursday (October 1) on swine flu patients.
Unfortunately, I've been unable to find out where The Guardian got this information from. The paper describes it was a Department of Health patient survey but despite an extensive search by the DofH press office, they could find no record of it. But I trust The Guardian so I'll happily repeat the few findings they reported:
* More than 80 per cent of children under the age of five who have been hospitalised with swine flu had no underlying health problems.
* And almost half of those aged 16 to 14 who needed inpatient treatment for the infection had also been previously healthy.
* More than one in four patients admitted to hospital had asthma, more than 15 per cent had heart disease and more than 10 per cent had diabetes
However, the sample was only of 192 patients. It reaffirms that the fit and healthy among us - that's Dad in my swine flu family above - shouldn't be complacent. And while The Whitehaven News reported this week on an outbreak of suspected swine flu in an old folk's home, the elderly actually seem to be more resistant to it than most.

The more bizarre headlines

Swine flu is not a laughing mater but here are some of the more bizarre swine flu headlines that have caught my eye...

• No Swine Flu deaths in Botswana
  
• Canadian Aboriginals get body bags after asking government for swine flu help
  
• Is St Thérèse of Lisieux spreading swine flu?
  
• Prisoners Got Drunk On Swine Flu Gel
  
• Now they want to ban handshakes
  
• Media spreading virus of fear
  

MP's questions

Helping flublogia (the internet community interested in swine flu) in their quest for data on swine flu in Andrew Pelling, MP for Central Croydon. He has tabled questions in parliament seeking information with limited success. The answers provided by the HPA have proved to be 'lacking'. I can't find the figures on Andrew's site at the moment but they are included in the rebuttal by Sheila Bird on Straight Statistics. Sheila says: "Either the Health Protection Agency doubted that a Member of Parliament was capable of posing an epidemiologically-adept Parliamentary Question and hence misread it, or HPA chose helpfully to answer a different question which they could answer." Crucially she appeals for data by age group to help form a strategy for dealing with the second wave.

Are women more at risk?

It would be interesting to see male/female figures on swine flu. The impression I'm getting from the limited data available seems to suggest women are more at risk from swine flu than men. Anyone got any official data?

Latest figures

"Swine flu almost doubles" is the headline figure from the latest HPA reports on swine flu in the UK. But despite that I think there are reasons to be optimistic. It's easy to concentrate on 'doom and gloom' but with just two more deaths (total now 84) and a slowing down in fatalities, I'd suggest that the health service is doing a good job of containing the worst effects of this virus. Sure, more are getting it but it's generally a mild condition. Other headlines from the HPA report on Week 40:

* Rates remain below the normal winter seasonal baseline thresholds in England and Wales. The threshold has been breached in Scotland, and rates are well above newly defined provisional threshold levels in N. Ireland. In England the highest rates are in the northern regions.

* In England, on 30 September there were 286 hospitalised patients with suspected pandemic influenza, an increase from 218 seven days previously.

* The consultation rates in the RCGP scheme have increased in most age groups (figure 3), with the greatest increases in the 1-4 year-olds (15.7 to 37.8 per 100,000) and 5-14 year-olds (22.6 to 22.4 per 100,000. (5 to 14 age group is down in Scotland but remains high in 0 to 4 age group)

Play the Swine Flu Family game

There's a slimmed down version of my swine flu family above (and a larger version on my flickr account here) so I can more easily pose the question: "Who is most at risk?". It's been hard to find answers with the paucity of data on swine flu but they're all likely to catch swine flu - with Betsy aged seven most likely to crop up in the doctor's surgery but that may be down more to worried parents than ill children. Dad is super fit but as we're seeing that's no immunity from swine flu - even the very rare fatal flu. Gran and Grandad might worry you because of their age but as long as they are otherwise healthy the NHS aren't expressing concern unless they are over 65. And Simon at University might be best placed to catch swine flu but it's actually pregnant mum who is the only one of this family who crops up on the NHS "at risk" list. Pregnancy means the immune system is naturally suppressed.


The complete 'at risk' categories are: (Source: NHS)
 •Patients who have had drug treatment for asthma in the past three years

•Pregnant women

•People aged 65 years and older

•Children under five years old

•People with chronic lung disease

•People with chronic heart disease

•People with chronic kidney disease

•People with chronic liver disease

•People with chronic neurological disease

•People with immunosuppression (whether caused by disease or treatment)

•People with diabetes mellitus