New illnesses to come for Essex despite flu and Covid cases, warns expert
He believes people shouldn't be surprised over a rise in infections
A medicine expert's telling us people in Essex should not be surprised of a rise in flu and Covid infections.
It comes as virus experts have said it's difficult to diagnose if several illnesses with similar symptoms are caught at the same time.
Dr Stephen Hughes is a senior lecturer in medicine at Anglia Ruskin University:
"This year, it's nothing much out of the ordinary but the rule of thumb, over winter particularly in the new year through to March and early April, we will see an increase in respiratory infections," he said.
"It's largely weather related and also related to people spending more time indoors, worse air flow and closer together.
"These infections do cause an excess in mortality so in the winter, we see more people dying because of respiratory infections and that's something that happens from year to year and happened to devastating effect when we had Covid.
"That's now become a less lethal condition."
Older people could more likely see return of infection
Dr Hughes said that younger people who possibly have a better immune system will become less prone to being reinfected.
"As people develop a much better immune system and looking after themselves better, we see a tailing off in the 20s, 30s and 40s, and in the 50s, 60s and so on, particularly people who have damaged their lungs with smoking, we'll start to see a rise in infections.
"We will see different viruses, bacterial infections coming to the fore but what we can do is look after ourselves; if we've got an infection, minimise our contact with others.
"If you take simple measures, you'll reduce your likelihood of spreading something to a certain extent and every little helps."