What will happen to swine flu in 2010?
We can all be grateful that the NHS did not have the Christmas or New Year it was expecting. Looking back to June last year, there was huge expectation that H1N1 swine flu would cause immense pressure on the health service with predictions that intensive care could face its toughest challenge in forty years. 
Swine flu has not entirely gone away, and there are still patients critically ill in hospital with the complications of the virus. But it is nothing like as bad as had been feared. The show that cases continue to decline across the UK with the majority of infections being mild.
So what should we expect in 2010? Has swine flu had its day? Time for some New Year predictions, which will no doubt return to haunt me in months ahead.
Anyone who has studied the influenza virus will tell you that it is an unpredictable so-and-so, which makes forecasting rather difficult. But surely it is safe to say now that we are well over the worst of the first pandemic of the 21st Century?
We might get a bit of an upsurge in the coming weeks, but it should not be anything that the NHS couldn't handle.
The biggest concern would be virus mutation. But there are no tangible signs of a mutated H1N1 pandemic virus spreading in the community. So far, so reassuring - but let's wait and see what the year holds. So many people have been infected with swine flu that there is now quite a bit of herd immunity in Britain, which might itself force the virus to change its genetic make-up in order to keep circulating.
The H1N1 pandemic strain is being incorporated into the seasonal flu vaccine for the southern hemisphere, which will be distributed in a couple of months. The same will happen later this year for the northern hemisphere.
This means that by the time the next flu season comes round, in late autumn 2010, millions of us will either have had swine flu or have been immunised against it. So the second winter of swine flu should, hopefully, be as mild as the first.
PS: Many thanks for your comments in 2009, and a very Happy New Year to you all.
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