The number of Scots hit by winter flu has soared to an eight-year high with nearly 8000 telling their doctors they have fallen ill.
Official figures from a flu-monitoring scheme show there were five times as many Scots going to surgeries with flu symptoms in the second week of this year as at the same time last year, and experts say it could get worse.
However, the real extent of the outbreak will be much greater still because many thousands of Scots tough it out when they have flu and do not attend doctors' surgeries.
According to the monitored figures, the rate is nearly four times the norm and significantly higher than in 2003, when four children died from a virulent strain of influenza known as Fujian flu.
The rise has been partly blamed on delays in the supply of flu vaccines to doctors and pharmacies across Scotland.
Martin Donaghy, medical director of Health Protection Scotland (HPS), said initial genetic structure tests showed it was the A/Wisconsin strain that was prevalent, although he could not rule out flu mutations.
"Usually, when flu comes in it lasts eight to 10 weeks although it is very difficult to predict what will happen in terms of numbers," he said.
"Certainly, the numbers are the largest we have seen since 1999. The vaccine protects against a cocktail of different strains including the Wisconsin strain. If everyone had the flu jab this year they would be immune but we don't immunise the whole population, we immunise those at risk."
Professor Hugh Pennington, of Aberdeen University, one of Britain's leading microbiologists, said the rise may in part be down to a strain that the new flu vaccine has not been able to deal with. We might well have more than one strain doing the rounds," he said.
"The problem with flu is that what you have to go on is the previous year's experience when developing a vaccine. It takes time to make a new vaccine so by the time you get the new vaccine it is a year out of date. The virus changes every year. It means that people's immunity from previous flus they have had or even from the vaccine is not as good as it might be."
The flu figures, published yesterday by HPS, show that consultations for flu-like illnesses at doctors' surgeries have risen nearly eightfold across Scotland since Christmas from 21 to 158 cases per 100,000. More than 1000 is classed as an epidemic.
Delays in delivering this year's flu shots which are formulated to protect people from different strains were caused by manufacturers reporting problems growing the A/Wisconsin strain. The ideal time to be vaccinated is anywhere from October to November. But delays in Scotland meant some health agencies were still taking delivery of vaccines in December. It meant many GPs were having to vaccinate patients against flu well into the New Year.
Meanwhile, victims of the 1918 flu virus, which claimed an estimated 50 million lives, were killed by their own immune systems, scientists said yesterday.
Scientists made the discovery after infecting macaque monkeys with a reconstructed version of "Spanish Flu", the devastating virus that hit the world's population at the end of the First World War. They found the strain unleashes a savage and uncontrolled immune reaction that destroys the lungs in a matter of days.
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