By Sophie Borland
Last updated at 11:03 PM on 20th December 2010
Nearly 200 swine flu victims were fighting for their lives last night.
The number of patients in intensive care has doubled in a week and many of them are either elderly or pregnant.
Seventeen of the 190 are being kept alive by highly-specialised heart and lung machines – three times the usual number.
Fighting for her life: Fallon Devaney, with her family, is one of the 200 people battling swine flu in intensive care units across the country
It is feared that the swine flu strain may have grown more virulent over the past 12 months with victims quickly becoming dangerously ill.
Intensive care units are warned to look out for the illness in new admissions, with medics urged to use antiviral medicines if they have the least suspicion a patient has it.
Hospital managers have been holding emergency meetings to draw up plans to tackle a further onslaught of cases...
1 comment:
It might be nice to know where this is taking place.
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