Flu cases surge early this year as high-risk strain spreads

One of the world's biggest killers is back in the UK again.

- Dr Ali A Smith

It's here every year, but some years are worse than others.This looks like it's going to be one of the bad years. Influenza is important in terms of deaths but also in terms of illness. A bad year for Influenza is going to be a bad year for the NHS.

In a bad year Influenza will kill about 20,000 people. It's not a random killer. Illnesses like meningitis and tuberculosis are much more random and will kill young healthy people. Influenza hits the vulnerable. Most deaths will be in people who have an established illness or are particularly elderly.

The illnesses will mostly be respiratory, but diabetes is also relevant.

Those things were relevant to COVID too. COVID however was responsible for at least 10 times the deaths over two years. In the years before COVID almost all of the predictions of global pandemics were based on the spread of Influenza.

The world has been waiting for a major new strain of Influenza for decades. When that happens, it will kill numbers similar to the COVID pandemic.