Swine flu deaths increasing across Europe

The number of H1N1 swine flu deaths in Europe has doubled almost every two weeks since the middle of October, the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said today.

169 people died of the virus in the past week and 670 deaths have been reported in Europe from H1N1 flu since monitoring began in April, the Stockholm-based disease surveillance experts said.

'The number of deaths. . . has shown a steady increase - almost doubling every fortnight over the last six weeks,' the Centre said in its daily update.

'While the most deaths have to date been in western Europe there are increasing numbers of deaths being reported from central and eastern Europe.'

Vaccination programmes against H1N1 have started in many European countries in recent weeks to try to halt the spread of the virus, which is commonly known as swine flu and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in June.

But immunisation plans are facing mixed levels of uptake and opposition from anti-vaccine lobbyists, according to the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. It said such opposition was putting public health and lives at risk.

The WHO said last week that governments across the world have administered more than 65 million H1N1 vaccine doses. Common side effects of the shots include swelling, redness or pain at the injection site, and sometimes fever or headache but the WHO ruled out any death links to the shots.

Flu levels are reported as being 'unusually high for this time of year' across Europe, with H1N1 accounting for 99% of cases.

Read information about H1N1 swine flu in Ireland