NHS set for "rollercoaster" flu season

Britain's health services are set to be tested to the limit by the winter bug and flu season, it has been suggested.

A leading health professional has claimed that the annual rise in cases of a number of infectious diseases, including influenza, will be unpredictable in the first few months of 2009.

John Oxford, a virology specialist at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, told the Daily Mail: "We have to hold our breath, grip on to our chairs and see what happens. It will be a rollercoaster ride for the NHS. We often see a rush of cases in the first week of January, with people going back to work and to school.

"The figures before Christmas show things are not as calm as they have been for the last few years. It's a warning signal that there will be many more cases."

Experts have blamed the rising levels of flu on below-average temperature in December and the influx of an Australian strain of the virus, which Britons' immune systems are unaccustomed to.