TWO people are in intensive care in Worcester suffering from swine flu but hospital chiefs have denied rumours that their condition is critical.

Your Worcester News received reports that two people in their 30s, previously fit and well, were critically ill in the intensive treatment unit at Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Worcester.

A spokesman for the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said: “We have had several patients requiring intensive care since April when the outbreak first started, who have had swine flu as well as their underlying illness. This is the case at present. However, the two patients are not in a life-threatening condition.”

So far, about 3,500 out of 10,000 frontline health and social care staff have been vaccinated against the swine flu virus and there have been six clinics a day running across Worcestershire offering the vaccinations. Frontline health workers are people such as doctors and nurses in A&E and staff who work in nursing homes who are likely to have contact with vulnerable people.

All 68 GP surgeries in Worcestershire have also been allocated the first 500 doses of the vaccine and it is for individual GPs to decide who to vaccinate. But the priority groups have been identified as pregnant women and vulnerable people with chronic conditions such as heart problems, diabetes and asthma. In Worcestershire alone, there are between 75,000 and 100,000 people in this ‘at risk group’.

GPs have been seeing, in total, between 50 and 100 people each day, a rate that has remained steady for the last three weeks.

Dr Richard Harling, director of public health for Worcestershire, said the virus remained mild for the vast majority of people although he admitted that some people from the vulnerable groups had been ‘very sick’ in Worcestershire. “He said: “The numbers are going neither up nor down at the moment. We are starting to see swine flu blurring into seasonal flu and other respiratory problems.

“A proportion will have swine flu, some will have normal flu and some will have bad colds. On the whole, swine flu is affecting younger people, particularly younger children.”