Doctors have issued a warning about flu season in the UK after a “large number” of youngsters needed hospital care after catching the virus in Australia. Parents are being urged to take up the offer of a flu nasal spray for their children as data suggests flu season has arrived early this year.
Dr Dame Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said that it was difficult to predict the severity of flu and Covid-19 spikes this winter in the UK, but she referred to the flu season in Australia where there were high case rates and hospital admissions for flu among young people.
Asked if the NHS should expect a difficult winter, Dame Jenny told a Royal Society of Medicine webinar on Covid-19: “The difficult thing is that we can’t expect anything, we should be anxious about it and I think that’s exactly what we should be. The word ‘twindemic’ is not a guaranteed position for this winter but it’s one that we should be reasonably planning for."
