The launch of the national swine flu hotline could leave children at risk from other potentially fatal infections, parents were warned today.
The Meningitis Research Foundation (MRF) said that relying solely on the call centre could lead to cases of meningitis and septicaemia being missed.
It cautioned that the early symptoms of meningitis and blood infections, which mainly affect children, are similar to those of flu.
As the death of another person infected with swine flu brought the number of fatalities to 31 today, the charity said that parents should beware of confusing the symptoms of swine flu with other illnesses.
The National Flu Service, a dedicated telephone line to diagnose cases of swine flu and distribute medication, is expected to be up and running by the end of this week. A website that helps with home diagnosis is due to go live tomorrow.
The call centre will employ 1,500 staff who are not medically trained to diagnose symptoms remotely via a computerised questionnaire, before providing vouchers for antiviral medication where appropriate.
The doctor who drew up the questionnaire said that it had been designed to pick up cases of meningitis and septicaemia but that it was not infallible.
Peter Holden, the lead expert on swine flu for the British Medical Association and a GP in Matlock, Derbyshire, said: “The questionnaire is designed to weed out the 999 threats, like meningitis, right at the start.
“But this is mass medicine. It is inevitable that one or two will fall through the cracks. If you are getting hundreds of thousands of calls a day it is the only way to cope.”
The warnings came as Gordon Brown sought to reassure the public that the NHS was continuing to cope with the flu pandemic.
He said: “We have been preparing for a pandemic for a number of years.
“The NHS is continuing to cope well, but as swine flu cases have started to increase we have needed to give antivirals more quickly.”
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