No room for swine flu complacency, warns health chief

The message came on the day the World Health Organisation declared the outbreak a pandemic.

It is the first time a flu pandemic has been declared for 40 years. Another 25 cases of swine flu were confirmed in England yesterday, taking the UK total to 822.

In announcing the pandemic, Steve Barnett, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “The confirmation of a level six global pandemic reinforces the need for the NHS to ensure all the flu plans already in place at local level are as comprehensive as possible and thoroughly tested.

“We need to avoid complacency in dealing with a virus that is an unknown and seems to be spreading quickly.”

Southampton’s consultant in public health Dr Graham Watkinson said the move was in response to the global spread of the outbreak. However, he said he predicted that the city would see more cases confirmed over the coming months, particularly towards winter.

He said: “It is only a matter of time before we have small outbreaks in Southampton. There are still risks, we have a port with ships coming in and out and an airport so there is a high through put of people. We will be expecting further cases. It is really important that people in Southampton continue to do things like wash their hands after going into town, make sure their children do and remember to bin tissues after use.”

So far only one case has been reported in Hampshire after a student in Southampton developed flu-like symptoms after visiting the United States.

According to Dr Watkinson, the case was managed well by the health service and the patient had fully recovered after being given five days of anti viral drugs.

Dr Watkinson was speaking as a conference was held at St Mary’s stadium in Southampton for health professionals to discuss how major incidents and pandemics would be handled. Emergency services including the fire service attended and demonstrated how they would deal with an incident that involved using decontamination chambers.