Health & Wellbeing
Flu-like illness often means missing work or school, UK says
UKHSA said on October 15 that volunteers' weekly reports show how often flu-like illness keeps people away from work or school.
On October 15, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) published new findings from FluSurvey, an online project in which members of the public report their symptoms every week. According to the agency, the results show how flu-like illness can affect people's everyday routines, not just their health. Among people who work or study, almost half of the illnesses they reported meant missing work or school.
FluSurvey was launched in 2009 by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and is now run by UKHSA. The agency calls it the UK's longest-running participatory surveillance system: a way of tracking illness that relies on ordinary people taking part. Anyone aged 18 or over who lives in the UK can sign up, and adults can also report for other members of their household, including children. Each week, participants receive an email reminder and answer a short online survey about any symptoms they have had. Many people with a mild illness never see a doctor, so their reports can reveal illness in the community that health services would otherwise miss.
Word in this story
To stop something from continuing in its normal way.
In the second winter, about three in four episodes disrupted people's daily routines.