Second wave of flu pandemic coming to an end

With the freezing weather outside and the bookies offering good odds on a white Christmas, it is worth considering another aspect of this time of year and to be grateful that we have escaped a real disaster in the shape of the H1N1 flu pandemic. Latest reports suggest that the second wave is coming to an end, although the number of hospitalisations and deaths during this wave have been higher than in the first wave. This is the classicpattern.News here on the BBC flu blog.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/ferguswalsh/2009/12/swine_flu_cases_continue_to_fall.html

However, as Fergus Walsh says, we would do well to remember that there will be many families this Christmas who will have lost a loved one to this virus. I was vaccinated several weeks ago against the virus and I see that many children are now being vaccinated also. I think this is a very wise precaution and have read heart rending accounts by mothers whose children have died, wishing that they had been vaccinated. Of course, there is often a third wave in a flu pandemic and we need to be on our guard - the danger is not yet past.

As Vice Chair of the London Ambulance Service Patients Forum I attended many meetings with health officials over the last few months on this issue, including a meeting with the Flu Tsar for London. People were genuinely worried and acted as quickly and responsibly as possible to put safeguards for public health in place. For those who criticise the measures taken, I would say this, that it was far better to follow the precautionary principle and to act responsibly than to have ignored the danger and suffered a possible disaster. The NHS and the Primary Care Trusts acted quickly and took the necessary measures for a pandemic. Flu is a very unpredictable illness and, of course, there is still the issue of seasonal flu, which carries off thousands of people each winter, especially the elderly. It is important that those people and health workers continue to get seasonal flu vaccinations.

I would like to put on record my thanks and appreciation to all of those people working in the NHS who have been dealing with this crisis, from the GPs to those doctors and nurses treating those with complications in hospital. An event like this flags up the significance of our health service and it is vitally important that this lesson is not forgotten by politicians. In the coming months we will hear a lot of rhetoric about cuts. It is vital that the health service and the NHS is protected from cuts and that the health of the nation is placed far above other policy concepts, such as the abomination which is Trident. As this pandemic has showed us, health spending and resources are literally a matter of life and death. And I would like to wish all those working in frontline health services, who often have to work over the Xmas period, a happy festive season and all the best for 2010.