Autumn flu set to overlap with Covid and monkeypox
Experts warn wave could be severe as there has been little influenza since 2020 – meaning immunity is low
BRITAIN will be hit by an early wave of flu this year which could start as soon as September, a health boss has warned.
There are fears that it will coincide with increasing Covid and monkeypox cases, which are also forecast to rise.
Britain has not experienced a proper flu season since the Covid pandemic started in 2020 and experts are worried about a lack of population immunity and a particularly bad winter.
Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical advisor at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), told a webinar hosted by the Royal Society of Medicine that health authorities are preparing for this.
Australia, now in winter, is having its worst flu season in five years, Dr Hopkins said, an ominous omen which British officials are keeping a keen eye on.
“We are planning for an influenza wave,” she said. “I don’t know if people are following Australia, but we are watching very, very carefully. It started earlier and it rose very, very fast in all age groups so we are expecting that we will see an early influenza wave.
“While we normally don’t see influenza really kick off until the end of November to December, that might happen as early as late September-october – that’s what we’re planning for.”
“We will see at least one Covid wave in the autumn-winter, once we have got through the current wave. And, for the next six months at least, we will have ongoing community transmission of monkeypox,” Dr Hopkins warned.
Covid cases are on the rise at the moment as a subvariant of omicron, BA.5, exploits a population with waning immunity from booster jabs. The Zoe symptom tracker app warns cases are up 27 per cent in a week and set to continue their upward trend.
Monkeypox is spreading through close contact, including sexual activity, and Dr Hopkins revealed there are now 20 to 40 new cases every day. Total UK cases recently exceeded 1,000 but no deaths have been reported.
London is the epicentre with 659 confirmed infections. The majority of patients are gay and bisexual men between the age of 31 and 43, with the average age 36. Just five women have been diagnosed and at least one child has tested positive for the virus which produces sore and virus-laden lesions.
The three diseases are following their own trajectories but experts are fearful they will overlap in the coming months.
“This year will be even more challenging than normal,” Dr Hopkins said.
She added that if the NHS can get through 2022 relatively unscathed, 2023 “will look like a different world”.
The Office for National Statistics yesterday announced its gold-standard coronavirus infection survey is being pared back after more than two years, drawing criticism.
Dr Jenny Harries, CEO of the UKHSA, said: “The world-leading Covid-19 Infection Survey will work alongside surveillance programmes in care homes and the NHS to help continue to monitor coronavirus and its effects.”
However, scientists warn that the change to the survey’s methodology risks the validity of its results.
Prof Paul Hunter, of the University of East Anglia, said it was “disappointing” and a “mistake” to scale back the survey and could leave experts “blind” to the virus’s prevalence heading into winter.