LONDON — More than 300 people are in intensive care in hospitals across Britain with flu, and European health officials say the region should act now to encourage more people to get vaccinated.
A spokeswoman for the British government's health department said a total of 302 people were in critical care beds with flu. She could not say how many had the H1N1 strain which spread around the world as a pandemic from 2009, but experts said it was likely that H1N1 would be dominant.
"From around the country, reports from frontline staff are showing unprecedented levels of hospitalization with severe flu in high-risk adults," said Peter Openshaw, director of the Centre for Respiratory Infection at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London.
According to the latest data from the UK Health Protection Agency, 14 people have died in Britain with confirmed H1N1 flu so far this flu season and another three have died with a strain known as flu type B. That number is expected to increase when new national figures are released later this week.
Read more here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40770355/ns/health-cold_and_flu/