Weekly pandemic flu media update

17 December 2009

KEY POINTS

• The consultation rate for flu-like illness in England from the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) scheme has decreased slightly to 29.7 per 100,000 in week 50 compared to 33.1 in week 49. This is just below the English baseline threshold of 30/100,000.
• The estimated cases self referring to the National Pandemic Flu Service have shown decreases in all areas of assessments, authorisations and collections. This is across all regions and most age groups. 
• Interpretation of data to produce estimates on the number of new cases continues to be subject to a considerable amount of uncertainty. HPA modelling gives an estimate of 9,000 new cases in England last week (range 5,000 to 19,000) which represents a small decrease from the previous week.    
  This estimate incorporates data from National Pandemic Flu Service and GP consultations.
• The HPA estimates a cumulative total number of cases of 780,000 (with a range 370,000 to 1,625,000) since the pandemic began.

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