Swine flu could effectively make its last stand in the UK within weeks, the Government's chief scientific adviser said today. But Professor John Bennington said a weaker form of the virus could take hold as a second wave hits the country in the winter months. Research and epidemic modelling suggests a second wave of the virus would be weakened.'You can get infections coming back in a number of waves but it's likely that the next one will be larger than any subsequent ones,' Prof Bennington told the British Science Festival at the University of Surrey.
Tomorrow, members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Advisory Committee (Spi), which advises the Government on flu pandemics, will meet for a swine flu update. Prof Bennington, speaking in Guildford, Surrey, said: 'What is likely to happen will depend on a number of things, firstly the number of unreported cases.
'Whether it comes in October early and at a fairly high level, or in more moderate waves later in the year, is hard to predict.'
Long term, the fate of the virus would depend on how it competed with normal seasonal flu, he said. It was possible swine flu might become the new 'default' seasonal flu.
'There may be some quiescence of incidence in summer next year after which it could come back as a normal seasonal flu. We don't know, it's early days,' said Prof Bennington.
He defended the decision to mass-treat large numbers of the population with anti-viral drugs. Around 450,000 doses of the drug Tamiflu have been distributed, 10 times the number of confirmed flu cases. Prof Bennington added: 'I think there are really sensible pragmatic issues involved, particularly to do with being precautionary.
'It's a perfectly reasonable position to say "put this out, make it freely available", when you balance the potential for side effects from Tamiflu against the potential for getting flu really badly.' Despite this, he said there was disagreement among government advisers about whether to mass-treat the population or just target high risk groups. (Daily Mail)
