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By Sophie Borland
Last updated at 7:20 AM on 27th December 2010
They say rates are rising faster than during December 1999, which marked the start of an outbreak which claimed more than 22,000 lives and brought the NHS to its knees.
There are now 460 people in intensive care, taking up around one in seven beds, up from 182 last week.
Professor John Oxford, a virologist and influenza expert at St Barts and the London Hospital, said the situation was still deteriorating and added: ‘I would not be surprised if we get to epidemic levels within one week.’
Dr Bob Winter, president of the Intensive Care Society, said that to preserve space in intensive care, hospitals have begun postponing elective surgical procedures – including serious cancer surgery – that require a patient to go on a ventilator while they recover.
Hospitals have begun postponing this procedure, as well as all other major operations such as heart bypasses, because of the growing shortage of intensive care beds.
Experts say the outbreak could reach epidemic proportions within the next few days. The latest infection rates show an average of 87.1 cases per 100,000 people – an epidemic is classified as more than 200 per 100,000.
But current rates are increasing much quicker than in December 1999, when there were just 60 per 100,000 over Christmas but more than 200 per 100,000 by New Year.
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