It is the first increase since the end of July, but the levels are still below what would be expected in a bad winter. In Scotland, the numbers have nearly doubled to more than 6,000, although in Wales and Northern Ireland the figures are much lower. Most of the rise in England is accounted for by school children with six schools reporting suspected outbreaks. A second wave of swine flu had been predicted to hit the UK in the winter months following the summer lull. Sir Liam said this now appeared to be happening. He added: "It does begin to suggest swine flu is coming back. "We would naturally have hoped for a bit more breathing space before it started again." He said the rise showed why it was important to get the vaccination programme under way quickly. A deal has now been agreed with GPs, meaning the UK will be ready to roll out the programme as soon as regulators license the jab. This is likely to happen in early October. The number of deaths in the UK has also risen to 79 - four more than last week - with more than 150 people in hospital because of the virus.

An estimated 110,000 people were diagnosed with the disease last week. One in every 158 people in England are thought to have had swine flu since the outbreak began in England at the end of April. GP consultation rates about flu-like illness dropped from 155 per 100,000 people to 138 last week. Consultations about flu have dropped in all age groups and the number of people in hospital has also dropped from 840 with 63 in intensive care to 746 with 81 in intensive care. There is a possibility the virus has had its fill of us for the moment. Around 150,000 courses of Tamiflu have been given out by the National Flu Pandemic Service although it is not clear how many of these patients actually had swine flu. Lloyds pharmacy has announced that it will supply the antiviral drug Tamiflu for £48.50. The official listed price for the NHS is £16.36. Patients who are diagnosed with swine flu through the National Pandemic Flu Service can receive the drug for free.
 

Children report problems of nausea, insomnia and nightmares after taking anti-viral drug. More than half the children in England taking the swine flu drug Tamiflu suffer side-effects such as nausea, insomnia and nightmares, researchers have found. Two studies from experts at the Health Protection Agency (HPA) showed a "high proportion" of schoolchildren reporting problems after taking the anti-viral drug. Data was gathered from children at three schools in London and one in the south west of England who were given Tamiflu in a bid to prevent them from developing swine flu after classmates became infected.

Pregnant women are four times more likely than the general population to need hospital treatment for H1N1 swine flu, data from the US suggests. The findings suggest pregnancy does increase the risk of complications without speedy anti-viral treatment. It also underlines the need to ensure pregnant women are made a top priority when a vaccine becomes available. The study, by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, appears in The Lancet medical journal. Scientists studied 34 confirmed or probable cases of swine flu infection among pregnant women. They found 11 were admitted to hospital - a rate four times higher than that seen in the general population. The women covered a broad range of ages and races and were in various stages of pregnancy. Six subsequently died after developing pneumonia.

The swine flu virus has reached 160 countries and could infect two billion people within the next two years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. The virus is thought to have killed almost 800 people in recent months.
The WHO says that in most affected countries, the majority of cases appear to be occurring in young people, around the ages of 12 to 17, although some reports suggest it is mainly older people who have required hospital treatment.
The organisation also said there was "accumulating evidence suggesting pregnant women are at higher risk of more severe disease".

A pandemic of public panic over swine flu is unnecessary and could put greater pressure on the alread-stretched NHS, the Health Secretary Andy Burnham has warned. He told the Observer that people should be reassured that the Government's response is well planned and that swine flu sufferers would get the help they need. He said: "It is very important for everybody to keep a sense of perspective. It has been a mild virus in the vast majority of cases, with relatively mild symptoms from which people recover fully fairly quickly. "People should be assured that we have been planning our response to a pandemic for a long time." The World Health Organisation (WHO) says 160 countries have now been affected by swine flu, and around 800 people have died worldwide.
 

The Government's new National Pandemic Flu Service enabled over 5,500 people to bypass the NHS and get Tamiflu on its first day of operation, official figures show. On day one of the service, Thursday 23rd July, over 58,000 assessments were completed, 89% of which were self-assessments on the web, Department of Health figures have shown. Antiviral drugs were then collected for 5,584 swine flu patients across England, according to the official tally.

The number of people consulting their GP because they think they have swine flu has almost doubled in one week. The Department of Health said an estimated 100,000 people in England sought help in the past week, up from 55,000 the previous week. Meanwhile, a new website to diagnose people with swine flu is experiencing "unprecedented demand" and briefly crashed within minutes of launching. The Government said the system, which launched at 3pm on Wednesday, was receiving 2,600 hits per second - or 9.3 million hits per hour - at around 5pm. The website crashed within minutes of launching but appeared to be running normally a short time later. However, the Government admitted it was having to increase capacity due to demand. Latest figures revealed there are now 840 people in hospital with the swine flu virus, of which 63 are in intensive care.
 

Airlines have put in place measures to turn back passengers showing swine flu symptoms, they said Sunday. And Virgin Atlantic said people suffering from swine flu would not be allowed to travel without a "fit to fly" certificate from their doctor or a hospital, though there have been no cases so far. Britain's health authorities are advising people with symptoms to delay their journeys until the signs have cleared up. "We have a medical team within the airline as well as a contingency planning group which has met for the past few years to look at the issue of a flu pandemic," A British Airways spokeswoman said. "We have a wide range of contingency plans in place which we can use depending on how the situation may evolve.

As the pandemic spreads, the NHS and other public services are preparing for the worst-case scenario – but they have no real idea of how bad the situation might get. Britain is this weekend caught in a terrifying guessing game as scientists and the Government try to work out just how bad the H1N1 virus will get. Eight weeks after the first case of swine flu reached Britain, amid calls for calm, this was the week when it all got serious. Scores of schools have closed early for the summer holidays; the NHS is being swamped by new cases and children have started dying. The Government's Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, told us that as many as 65,000 people could die from the H1N1 virus, but the truth is no one actually knows how the virus will mutate before it comes back for the second wave in the autumn.