Vanessa Feltz shared a health update on her daughter after sharing with fans that she had been rushed to hospital last week when she became ‘desperately ill’ with the flu.
The radio presenter appeared in the This Morning studio on Monday morning alongside Tom Swarbrick as they sat down with hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield.
The 60-year-old made a plea for ITV viewers to get their flu jabs after her daughter was placed on a hospital drip in the wake of falling ill with the seasonal illness last Wednesday.
Vanessa shared her own surprise that her 36-year-old daughter Allegra had become so unwell, noting: “She’s 36. She’s slim, she’s fit, she’s got two young children.”
She explained: “She started feeling incredibly ill – vomiting, vomiting, vomiting. We thought it was norovirus and the kind of thing you just deal with at home.
“She got sicker and sicker. In the end she was admitted as an emergency and is still in hospital. She’s still on a drip.”
However, Vanessa said her daughter finally ‘turned a corner’ on Monday morning and had asked her to share her health scare with ITV viewers as she had become so unwell despite having received a flu vaccine.
Vanessa explained she received the jab alongside her daughter, who decided to pay for the vaccine amid fears of contracting the flu this winter.
Vanessa said: “The consultant said, ‘Imagine if she hadn’t got it’. In other words, the vaccine may not protect you from getting the flu, but it will save your life.
“Please, if you’re eligible for it go and get it and if you’re not, consider paying for it.”
She continued: “[The doctor] said that the flu, when you get it very badly, is worse than Covid.
“He said you feel like you’re going to die and in some cases you do. She has been deadly ill.
“Yesterday when I went to visit her in hospital, she could not open her eyes and she could not talk, she was so ill.”
A worried Vanessa took to Instagram from hospital on Sunday night – four days after her daughter was admitted after falling seriously ill with the flu.
The presenter said: "Speaking from my daughter’s hospital bed. She has been on a drip since Thursday night. And it turns out she's got pure and simply flu. It's influenza. It's the flu bug that all the doctors warned us was coming this winter.
"She's got a particularly virulent horrible, horrible case of it. And guess what? She had been vaccinated and all the doctors have said if she hadn't been she would have been even worse and believe me, it isn't worth thinking about."
Vanessa again urged people to go and get the flu jab as she added: "She wouldn't want anyone to go through what she's going through. And neither would I."
