By Jason Gale
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Influenza levels in England and Wales are the highest in a decade, with doctors reporting a doubling in the rate of patients suffering flu-like illnesses last week, the Royal College of General Practitioners said.
Doctors reported 155 cases of flu-like illness per 100,000 people across the two countries in the week ended July 19, the organization’s research and surveillance center in Birmingham said today. That’s the highest since the winter of 1999-2000 and compares with 73 cases per 100,000 the previous week.
Rates may continue to climb as the first influenza pandemic in 41 years continues to spread among people with no immunity to the new H1N1 strain, said John Paget, an epidemiologist at the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research in Utrecht who monitors flu patterns for euroflu.org.
“This is totally unusual for summer,” Paget said in a telephone interview today. “It just confirms that it’s a pandemic virus.”
Influenza is more common in winter because virus particles persist longer in the air during colder, drier weather. The bug is also transmitted more easily in winter because people tend to stay close together indoors.
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