17 people have died from the flu so far this winter, with cases expected to peak next week

LAST UPDATE | 1 hr ago

A TOTAL OF 17 people have died from influenza so far this winter season, and 62 have been admitted to ICU, with a Cork-based doctor warning that the flu has likely not reached its peak.

Speaking to RTÉ’s This Week, Dr Seán Underwood, a doctor in emergency medicine at Cork University Hospital who had just come off a 24-hour shift, said that there had been a “steady stream of patients across all ages with flu-like illnesses”.

“And that’s alongside our usual emergency work. Treating people involved in car crashes, heart attacks and sepsis,” he said.

“A lot of people are really unwell with fever. Severe aches, cough and breathlessness and it’s putting a whole of pressure on the whole hospital.” 

Dr Underwood said that the flu had “hit a little earlier this year”.

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“And that combined with the fact that the peak is looking set up to line up with Christmas – just is I suppose all the children who are the highest transmissible rates at the moment meeting their elderly grandparents – is a worry for how we’re going to cope after Christmas,” he said.

Dr Underwood said vaccination rates were up on previous years and in general the health service was better prepared.

“We’re very thankful for our GP colleagues, for instance, extending their opening hours. We’re very thankful for the public for increasing their levels of vaccination,” he said.

He also said CUH emergency service had “doubled our consultant presence over the weekends”. He said all this work had helped the health service to prepare.

“But in all truth it won’t fully overcome the issue of the need for increased bed on a infrastructural level,” he said.

Some hospitals have put a restriction on visits in place in order to combat the spread of the flu, which Underwood said was to protect the most vulnerable patients and staff in hospitals.

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