UK gives up counting swine flu infections, because numbers are growing too rapidly

The Health Protection Agency yesterday announced another 342 patients in England have been confirmed with swine flu, while the figure for the UK as a whole rose to 6,929.

The official statistics on the virus are likely to underestimate the true scale of infection in the UK because only a sample of patients in the hotspots now have a diagnosis of swine flu confirmed by lab tests.

SHOOT: The numbers are meaningless. A percentage of the total population (or number per 100 000) is more useful. Between 350 million and 1 billion people contract ordinary flu each year. Swine flu is 10 times deadlier, and at least as infectious.

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk The government is due to announce a major change in its handling of swine flu outbreaks today, with the daily recording and reporting of cases expected to be abandoned because of the increasingly rapid spread of the virus. With the number of cases confirmed by laboratory tests set to exceed 7,000 today, it is likely that the policy of trying to contain the H1N1 virus may be abandoned in favour of "outbreak management". In swine flu hotspots such as London, the West Midlands and parts of Scotland, which have already moved to the outbreak management phase, diagnosis of the virus is now being done by doctors rather than laboratory testing and tracing the contacts of people with swine flu and the preventative use of anti-viral drugs has stopped. Anti-viral drugs are still being offered to all people with symptoms. Collating daily figures is proving time consuming but the government and other agencies recognise they still need other ways of regularly informing the public.