Why is this winter flu season so bad?
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Changing strains of influenza mean predicting the winter flu season is difficult, experts say. As a surge in the number of patients with flu piles pressure on hospitals, health experts have warned this winter flu season is more infectious than last year’s.
Multiple hospitals across the UK issued critical incident alerts on Tuesday as their emergency departments became overwhelmed with the volume of people presenting with respiratory illness on top of normal accident and emergency pressures. NHS national medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis said there were 5,000 flu hospital cases at the end of last week - while the number of Covid, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and norovirus cases continued to rise.
This season’s figure for flu patients in hospital is the highest recorded for two years. The UK Health Security Agency’s chief medical advisor Professor Susan Hopkins said last year’s flu season was relatively mild, and cases were much higher this season.
“Our latest data shows that flu is circulating at high levels, with case numbers and hospitalisations now approaching the numbers seen in the 2022-23 season,” she said. Dr Leon Peto , a consultant in infectious diseases and microbiology and clinical coordinator for the RECOVERY trial at the University of Oxford, said a season’s rise in flu cases can be can be triggered by the strains of the virus.
