Current Situation

The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised its alert level over swine flu from five to six - a full pandemic.

The lastest information published by the World Health Organsiation follows:

4 October 2009 -- The situation continues to evolve. As of 4 October 2009, worldwide there have been more than 375,000 laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 and over 4500 deaths reported to WHO.

As many countries have stopped counting individual cases, particularly of milder illness, the case count is significantly lower than the actual number of cases that have occured. WHO is actively monitoring the progress of the pandemic through frequent consultations with the WHO Regional Offices and member states and through monitoring multiple sources of data.

What are the facts

As we would expect, particularly in this very difficult economic climate, our Government is reluctant to spend money unless it absolutely has to, however these are the facts:

The Government has already:

•    invested millions of pounds in the purchase & storage of antiviral drugs
•    purchased & stored thousands of additional breathing respirators
•    purchased a supply of inflatable morgues to deal with increased death rate
•    set up an entire Government department to deal with a pandemic situation
•    released in November 2008 an extra £15million pounds to local health authorities to help them plan for the next flu pandemic

The Government is clearly very concerned about the threat of pandemic flu…. and so are we.

To find out more about how you can protect yourself and your family from a flu pandemic click here