Swine Flu

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s deep regret. H1N1, unlike many previous flu strains, does not particularly impact on the elderly; it impacts on younger people and on younger adults in particular. That is the principal reason why we are seeing a relatively larger number of people occupying critical care beds. The NHS response has been to accelerate the provision of critical care capacity and of ECMO beds in particular.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that tragically there have been 14 flu-related deaths in Northern Ireland during this winter. Given that that figure is proportionately higher than in other parts of the United Kingdom, what discussions has he had or does he intend to have with his counterpart in Northern Ireland to assess why the proportion is so much higher and whether there is a black spot with regard to that disease?

[Mr Lansley]

The figure of 50 deaths to which I have referred is the total number of deaths verified by the Health Protection Agency. There have been more deaths than that, but they have not been verified to have been caused by flu. I cannot comment on the relationship between the number that I quoted for the United Kingdom as a whole and that for Northern Ireland, because we are not dealing with comparable figures. My colleagues in the devolved Administrations and I will continue to keep in touch. It is important for us not to be simplistic about this. There are differences in vaccine take-up between Administrations—they are not major, but they exist. There are differences in the prevalence of swine flu, and the prevalence of flu in Northern Ireland is very high compared with England—it is even a great deal higher than that in Scotland. Happily, the number of deaths is only ever a very small proportion of the people who contract flu. To that extent, it is difficult to draw from the number of deaths conclusions about the nature of the response to flu overall, not least because the prevalence is overwhelmingly among people who are not in the at-risk groups, who, I hope, were vaccinated.