Fifty children and nine pregnant women died from flu during the 2010\/11 flu season, according to Health Protection Agency figures released today.<\/p>\n
There were 25 deaths in children aged 5-14 years, 16 in children aged between 1-4 and nine in children less than one year of age.<\/p>\n
Whilst the pensioners and at-risk queued to get their flu jab at the start of the flu season, it was young people and middle aged adults who were hit hardest by the illness.<\/p>\n
More than 70 per cent of fatal cases of flu affected people between the ages of 15 and 64 years of age.<\/p>\n
People in this age group also had higher hospital admissions.<\/p>\n
In the South West, a total of 29 people died from flu.<\/p>\n
The figures were published today by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) in their annual flu report.<\/p>\n
A total of of 602 people in the UK died from a confirmed influenza infection.<\/p>\n
Professor John Watson, head of the respiratory diseases department at the HPA, said: \u201cThe information published in our annual flu report confirms that seasonal flu activity in 2010\/11 was higher than last winter and that H1N1 \u2018swine\u2019 flu was the dominant strain. Sadly, a small proportion of flu cases resulted in serious illness and death, predominantly in young and middle aged adults.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach year hundreds of thousands of people catch flu and the majority will make a full recovery. Traditionally the elderly have been more seriously affected by winter flu but the picture is beginning to change as we are now seeing a higher proportion of young and middle aged people taken seriously ill.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Fifty children and nine pregnant women died from flu during the 2010\/11 flu season, according to Health Protection Agency figures<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bristol-news"],"yoast_head":"\n