Urgent flu ‘SOS’ warning over ‘concerning’ mutations and ‘worst winter in a decade’

Experts fear this year’s flu season could be particularly brutal, with a number of mutations spreading through the summer, and have issued an urgent ‘SOS’ warning for people to get their jabs

This year’s flu season could be the worst for a decade, experts fear.

They have warned the flu season has started more than a month early and is a type that history suggests is more severe. And the strain has evaded some people’s immunity after mutating in the summer.

The NHS has now issued a “flu jab SOS” as fears grow that we are heading for a brutal winter with the doctors’ strike starting on Friday.

Prof Nicola Lewis, director of the World Influenza Centre at the Francis Crick Institute, said: “We haven’t seen a virus like this for a while, these dynamics are unusual. It does concern me, absolutely. I am worried.”

Seven mutations appeared in a strain of seasonal flu in the summer, which led to a “fast increase”. Boffins say it’s unusual for it to happen in the warmer months.

Prof Christophe Fraser, from the University of Oxford, said in a typical flu season around one-in-five of us get sick but that could be higher this year.

He told the BBC: “It’s highly likely it’s going to be a bad flu season and it’s going to happen quite soon, we’re already well into it. There are indicators that this could be worse than some of the flu seasons we’ve seen in the last 10 years.”

Health chiefs have urged the nation to get the seasonal jab, with 2.4 million slots available in the next week.

Prof Lewis said this is “absolutely the most important year” to get vaccinated and that “if you have been called by your GP, please get your flu vaccine as soon as possible”.

Last year, nearly 8,000 people died from the flu. And in 2022-23, there were nearly 16,000 deaths.

Prof Fraser added: “Some protection is better than no protection, but this year is likely to be one of the years where the amount of protection is less than it is in years when the match is better, it’s not an ideal situation.”