Flu deaths more than double in a week

The number of people who have died with flu since September rose from 50 at the end of the previous week to 112, including six children under five, nine aged between five and 14 and 70 aged 15 to 64.

Of 81 cases where information was available, 63 were in risk groups for flu. The number of people in critical care in England has fallen from 783 last week to 661.

Currently the government’s flu vaccination policy is based on age and risk factors.

The independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) issues seasonal vaccine advice and recommends that healthy children, including those under five, are not at risk.

Daughter’s death sparks parents’ campaign

The figures were released a day after the mother of a three-year-old said the government should review its vaccination policy to include children.

Gemma Ameen and her husband, Zana, switched off life support to their daughter, Lana, just two days after she apparently caught a cold on Christmas Eve.

The couple, a nurse and a doctor, initially took their daughter to hospital in Stockport, Greater Manchester, where she was diagnosed with an infection and sent home.

Later the same day she was taken back to Stepping Hill Hospital after she suffered multiple fits. Lana was eventually transferred to Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool but died on Boxing Day.

Mrs Ameen issued a photograph of her daughter in intensive care in a bid to reverse Government policy on who is eligible for the seasonal flu vaccine which combats the H1N1 virus.

Expert advice

The Department of Health insisted independent expert advice was “absolutely clear” that children who do not have risk factors should not be vaccinated. The advice had been reviewed recently and the recommendation had not changed, it added.

But Mrs Ameen, 28, responded: “It’s heartless really. It definitely needs looking at again with another review.

“Rather than just taking facts and figures, they need to start thinking about people’s lives.”

The Interim Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, told Channel 4 News that while she was concerned about Lana’s death as an indidivual “there is a difference between being concerned about individuals and public health policy”.

She said she had convened a meeting of health advisers between Christmas and the New Year, when it became apparent that there was a larger infection rate among under-fives. But their advice had remained unchanged – that only those under-fives who were considered to be “at-risk” should be offered the vaccine.

Pharmacy giant Boots has revealed its stores have “very limited” stocks of the winter flu jab and said there was currently no hope of replenishing its supplies.