Death toll from flu jumps to 254

Children have been particularly hard hit in this winter’s outbreak

The death toll from this winter’s flu outbreak is continuing to rise as a row erupts over who should manage the vaccination campaign in the future.

Latest figures show 254 people in the UK have died – up from 112 last week.

It comes after Professor David Salisbury, the government’s head of immunisation, suggested ministers should take charge of the flu jabs programme from GPs.

But doctors rejected the suggestion, saying it could make matters worse.

Not all the deaths will have come in the past seven days as there is sometimes a lag in how quickly health officials can confirm whether a death is related to swine flu. Of those who have died, 195 were infected by the H1N1 swine flu virus.

Professor Salisbury revealed his desire to see central government take control of ordering and supplying flu vaccination in an interview with the BBC News website.

He said there was a “pretty compelling” case for the move after the problems this winter.

GPs ran out of seasonal flu jabs earlier this month, forcing ministers to turn to stockpiles of the old swine flu vaccine – which does not offer protection against all the strains of flu circulating this winter.

Most vaccines, including the entire childhood immunisation programme, are ordered by the Department of Health for the whole of the UK.

The system used means all vaccines that are sent out to GPs can be tracked and the government knows how many doses are left in the system.

Flu is one of the few exceptions, with GPs in England ordering jabs direct from manufacturers and similar systems operating elsewhere in the UK.

Prof Salisbury, who is leading a review into the issue, said this was a “historic hangover” that now needed looking at.

Professor Salisbury said: “Certainly this winter we have seen an unsatisfactory position. That is a situation that we don’t want to see happen again.

“We compare that with the routine childhood immunisation programme where we have not had to suspend part of the programme because of shortage of vaccine for at least a decade. This argues that we do need to look very carefully at whether flu vaccine supply can be done on a more dependable basis.”

But the suggestion has caused some surprise coming just a day after the government unveiled a bill paving the way for GPs to be given more power – they will get control of much of the NHS budget from 2013.

Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association’s GPs’ committee, said: “I don’t think a wholesale change like this would work. The flu programme is complex and intense as we have a lot of people coming for immunisation at once.

“That does not happen with childhood vaccines and so I am not sure a central system could cope with the volume of vaccine GPs need almost all at once.

“What we need is for an emergency stock to be held, perhaps regionally, in case doctors do run out.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.