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Swine flu will be back in the winter: scientists

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  • Swine flu will be back in the winter: scientists

    The pandemic is not over and the H1N1 virus is likely to return in the winter when flu would normally be expected, scientists have said.

    Despite the feeling that most people have already had the bug, even if they didn't show symptoms, tests have shown that in some areas of the country 85 per cent have not yet contracted H1N1.


    Uptake of the vaccine has varied from around 10 per cent to 30 per cent of those offered it so many of the most vulnerable are not protected, they said.

    Prof Neil Ferguson, Director of the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling, Dept of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, said there has been a resurgence of cases in the southern states of America and this time H1N1 appears to be striking older people.

    Prof Peter Openshaw, Director of the Centre for Respiratory Infection at the National Heart and Lung Institute, at Imperial College London added: "The perception is that everyone has had it therefore won't get it again. In London and the West Midlands up to 40 per cent of schoolchildren have had it but they are the exception. In most regions it was about 15 per cent so there are still a lot of people still to be infected."
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