THE NUMBER of reported human swine flu cases has almost tripled in the space of a week, new figures reveal.
The figures were released as University College Dublin confirmed that seven foreign students were in quarantine in the university’s residences with suspected swine flu.
In the week up to Sunday last, the incidence of swine flu was 37 per 1,000, the equivalent of more than 1,600 cases nationally.
The numbers are similar to those given by GPs who say they have diagnosed 1,500 cases in the last week.
In the week ending July 19th, the reported incidences was 13 per 100,000, the equivalent of about 600 cases nationally.
Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said the cases involved GPs who were reporting patients with influenza symptoms rather than human swine flu itself, but nearly all cases of suspected flu had turned out to be the H1N1 strain.
Dr Holohan said the figures were “not at all above the limits of what we would expect” for a flu outbreak.
The flu outbreak in December last year and January this year showed an incidence of 120 cases per 100,000 of the population.
He said the current outbreak equated to one case per GP. “It is not as if we are saying that GP practices are full of patients with these type of symptoms.”
He reiterated comments yesterday from the Irish College of General Practitioners that the rate of human swine flu was “well within our capacity to cope”.
To date 19 people have been kept in hospital with the disease.
Seven patients remain in hospital and two remain in intensive care, including a Slovakian man who is receiving treatment in St James’s Hospital.
Two-thirds of those who have contracted the disease did so as a result of foreign travel.
“As time goes by, we expect the proportion of people who contract the disease in Ireland to rise,” Dr Holohan continued.
“That is exactly the same scenario as we have seen in other countries.”
Dr Patrick Doorley, the HSE’s national director of population health, said the executive was looking at a scenario where routine operations and procedures would be postponed to cater for patients with the H1N1 strain.
“We will be prioritising services to create capacity right throughout the hospital system and that may involve operating theatres where capacity will be freed up,” he said.
At UCD, about 60 students who have been on campus for two weeks have presented with flu-like symptoms. Forty-seven have been cleared by doctors, 10 are awaiting assessment and seven have been quarantined.
UCD’s student union praised the actions of the college authorities to move to quarantine.
The students’ union welfare officer, Scott Ahearn, who has recently recovered from swine flu, said patients should stay at home, drink plenty of fluids and complete their courses of prescribed Tamiflu.
“I’ve found that swine flu is just a slightly worse case of the standard influenza that usually presents itself around Ireland each winter,” he said.
