A 92-YEAR-OLD man has died of swine flu in Northern Ireland, it was confirmed yesterday. The man had an underlying heath condition and was the 16th person to die of the H1N1 virus in the North.
The total of deaths in the Republic due to H1N1 is now 22. The HSE vaccination programme in schools will resume after the Christmas holidays.
The Department of Health has stressed that because the rate of infection in children under five years of age is significantly higher than that in the rest of the population, it was important to vaccinate them.
The North’s deputy chief medical officer Dr Paddy Woods said swine flu was not circulating as widely as in previous weeks, but called on the public to remain vigilant. Anti-viral prescriptions issued in the North fell from 137 to 121 last week, while there were four new swine flu detections.
It was revealed yesterday that a Health Service Executive (HSE) freephone information line on the swine flu pandemic received 104,000 calls between May and just before Christmas. The 24- hour line was set up last April in response to the public demand for information.
A HSE spokesman said calls to the information line had been steady since the outbreak, with increased activity during July and August, coinciding with the rise in cases in the Republic and the UK and the anticipated reopening of schools in September.
“The highest number of recorded calls was during the week of November 2nd, with over 12,000 received as the vaccination campaign began,” he said.
The current rate of calls is about 7,000 a week.
The HSE’s national information line assisted more than 20,000 callers with specific queries on swine flu between April to December. The spokesman said “swine flu” was the fastest-growing search item on Google in Ireland this year, with the hse.ie website the key source.
A dedicated information section was set up on hse.ie on April 24th, which expanded over time and became accessible through a new website, swineflu.ie, the spokesman added. This facility had been updated daily, providing information on the pandemic and the HSE’s vaccination programme.
A wide range of information had been distributed throughout the State to households, GP surgeries, pharmacists, hospitals and HSE facilities, as well as being available online, he said.