80% told they had swine flu DIDN'T really have the bug
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Wednesday, December 09, 2009
EIGHTY per cent of people diagnosed by call centre staff as having swine flu DIDN'T have the bug, it emerged yesterday.
The blunders have cost the NHS millions of pounds - and may have wiped BILLIONS off the economy as workers threw "sickies".
Just one in five people diagnosed by the controversial swine flu call centres had the illness, said scientists.
At the height of the scare in the summer the rate fell to one in TWENTY.
The news came as it was revealed that antiviral drug Tamiflu may be USELESS at staving off serious illness like pneumonia in swine flu victims.
A million packets of £15 Tamiflu were given out.
But the Government-run help-lines may have mis-diagnosed 800,000 swine flu cases, meaning the drug was wasted on those patients.
The figures came from the Health Protection Agency, which took swabs from random people diagnosed with the illness.
Its results suggest thousands used the call centres to get time off work.
Others who genuinely felt ill but were misdiagnosed spent days off believing they had the bug.
The helplines were set up to take the strain off GPs' surgeries.
But The Sun revealed that junkies and alcoholics with no medical background had worked on them. Many started after 20 MINUTES' training.
The TaxPayers' Alliance said last night: "These errors have come at huge cost to the NHS and the economy."
Separate research yesterday doubted the benefits of Tamiflu. It found that the drug cuts the length of flu by just one day, reported the British Medical Journal.
And there can be complications. The Sun told yesterday how Samantha Millard, 18, is fighting for life at a London hospital after suffering a suspected reaction.
Last night the Department of Health defended the help-lines - and said those with severe flu symptoms should take Tamiflu.
A spokesman said: "To suggest otherwise is potentially dangerous."