Swine Flu Latest News

Experts in intensive care and anaesthesia have predicted that the current swine flu pandemic could overwhelm critical care beds and ventilators in England, with hospitals on the South East Coast, and in the South West, East of England and East Midlands, being worst hit.

The research, fast-tracked for online publication by Anaesthesia, suggests that demand for critical care beds could outstrip supply by up to 130 per cent, with up to 20 per cent excess demand for ventilators in some regions.

Swine flu is beginning to sweep the country with more than 100,000 cases occurring in England in the last week and experts claiming that cases will be significantly higher by the autumn.

"Based on figures provided by the ten regional health authorities and using the FLUSURGE model developed by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the USA, we can see that hospitals would face massive excess demand even if the pandemic lasted an optimistic twelve weeks” says Dr Ari Ercole, a member of the research group led by Professor David Menon from the University of Cambridge.

"Paediatric intensive care facilities for children under 15 would be quickly exhausted, as they make up 10 per cent of current provision but could face 30 per cent of the demand for pandemic related beds. Early experience of the present strain suggests that the attack rate is particularly high in the young and that this virus may severely compromise the immune systems of people who contract it."

The research group, which also involved Dr Bruce Taylor from the Intensive Care Society and Dr Andrew Rhodes from St George’s Hospital, London, has calculated that there is an average of 4.5 critical care beds for each of the 100,000 people living in England. These vary from 3.0 on the South East Coast to 7.5 in London.

Swine Flu Latest News: Based on nearly 62,000 people being affected by swine flu at any one time, they predict that:

•Demand for critical care beds would outstrip supply by an overall average of 60 per cent at the pandemic’s peak. The model suggests that only London would be able to operate at just under maximum capacity (94%). However, the high population density in the Capital could increase the percentage who contract the infection, leading to higher demand than in other parts of the country.

•In the nine other English health regions, demand would outstrip supply by at least 20%. The largest shortfalls would be on the South East Coast (130% above capacity) and in the East of England, East Midlands and South West (120% above).

•Average demand for ventilators would be 78 per cent of capacity at the pandemic’s peak, with six regions predicted to cope with demand.

•However the East of England, East Midlands and South West would face a shortfall of 10% and the

latest official figures show there are 2,030 level three critical care adult beds in England and 265 paediatric intensive care beds, together with 1,607 adult and 43 paediatric high dependency beds that could potentially be used to ventilate people. The authors have assumed that the number of ventilators available equals the number of critical care beds.

"One of the main problems is that these beds already run at high occupancy rates and even delaying elective surgery to create additional ventilated beds would not meet demand," concludes Dr Ercole.