Promises of an improved flu vaccination programme

[Dedworth]

602 died in the UK last winter, Gov acts

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13523971

[Doc Alan]

602 deaths is not good news, especially when nearly 3/4 are under 65. That's why I posted "Coughs, colds and flu" last autumn. However, even if the number in the BBC News item "Winter flu death toll topped 600" is an underestimate, it's still less than 1% of the total UK deaths. Lung cancer ( mainly due to smoking) kills over 50 times that number.
In my thread (now closed) I listed the persons at high risk who should be vaccinated. Since that may be changed before next autumn I will not repeat those categories now, but will do so in due course. In 3 months we will know the result of the Government consultation. The proposal is to have a centralised system, possibly UK - wide, rather than GP's purchasing vaccines, although many GPs are happy with the present system.

[Dedworth]

I was surprised at the total number of deaths and the age bands