UK facing 100,000 daily cases of H1N1 by August

by Stevie Smith - Jul 2 2009, 17:45

While the World Health Organisation (WHO) would prefer to avoid undue panic regarding the full pandemic status attributed to the H1N1 ‘swine flu’ virus, the UK government probably isn’t helping matters after predicting a massive upturn in newly diagnosed cases throughout the summer.

UK Health Minister predicts 100,000 new cases every day. Image: Guerry/Flickr.

Speaking with fellow members of parliament, UK Health Secretary Andy Burnham said combined government and scientific projections suggest the country could be facing as many as 100,000 new cases daily in the next seven or eight weeks.“Cases are doubling every week and on this trend we could see over 100,000 cases per day by the end of August,” said Mr. Burnham before confirming that 7,447 people in the UK have been diagnosed with the potentially deadly virus.However, reflecting a governmental desire to tackle any such sudden acceleration in the spread of H1N1, Mr. Burnham also said the country has moved into its “treatment phase” and that some 60 million doses of flu vaccine will be available for distribution to the population by the close of 2009.Furthermore, general practitioners (GPs) across the UK have now been given the green light to diagnose individual cases instead of being forced to wait on a patient’s lab results, and effective antiviral treatments are also being passed to those already affected by the virus.So far, only three people in the UK have died as a result of contracting H1N1. Want regular updates from The Tech Herald? Follow us on Twitter.Interested in a more interactive TTH? Join our Facebook Group.

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UK facing 100,000 daily cases of H1N1 by August

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