London:
There were 55,000 new cases of swine flu reported in the UK last week with 53 people in critical condition. With the situation worsening quickly, there has been a torrent of warnings from health services including controversial advice to women to delay having children.
Pregnant women are among those at the highest risk of contracting swine flu as their immunity is lower than normal.
Fears were aggravated when a 39-year-old died after giving birth prematurely in London last week.
Mothers to be are being warned to avoid unnecessary travel and crowded areas. But what angered many was advice that women thinking of getting pregnant should delay having children. Organisations like the National Childcare Trust are calling this absurd and an overreaction.
"If you start giving sort of slightly woolly advice out - very long and general, almost impossible, unrealistic advice out to people - they start to think that there is something that they're not being told and as soon as people think there's something they're not being told that's when they start to panic," said Carrie Longton, Co-founder, Mumsnet.com.
The government accused of giving confusing advice says it's launching a National Pandemic Flu Service to help deal with the situation online or on the phone.
"Our advice to the public about dealing with it has not changed. However, as cases rise, it's understandable that people are becoming more concerned and all organisations have a role to play in providing reassuring, consistent and clear advice," said Andy Burnham, Health Secretary, UK.
A hundred and thirty schools shut down after it was discovered that school children had contracted swine flu; but now several authorities are urging the government to consider the drastic step of shutting down all schools as that could help curb the spread of the virus by 10-30 per cent.
With predictions suggesting the virus could affect half the British workforce and there could be as many as 65,000 deaths, there is no doubt that some amount of panic is setting in 8 weeks after swine flu broke out in Britain.