Swine flu is spreading more rapidly in Britain than anywhere else in the European Union, according to the latest figures on the outbreak.
European health officials confirmed that as of this morning, 456 people had caught the H1N1 virus across 21 EU member states, with almost half of those infected living in the UK.
More concerning is that the virus appears to be spreading more quickly from person to person in Britain than elsewhere, raising questions over public health measures to contain it.
Most European cases of swine flu are people who have flown home after picking up the infection in Mexico or the US. Britain is the only member state where more people have caught the disease at home than abroad.
Figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control show that of 203 confirmed cases of swine flu in Britain, 146 people caught the virus without leaving the country. In Spain, which has 143 confirmed cases, only 43 people caught the infection at home.
Sheila Bird, professor of biostatistics at Cambridge University, criticised Britain's Health Protection Agency for failing to publish the information, which emerged only in a European report on the epidemic.
"When you see a big difference in the rate of person-to-person transmissions between the UK and other countries, the immediate questions are is this due to better surveillance in the UK, or is it due to poorer public health measures?" she said.
"It's not just scientists who need to know this information. In the prevention of a new infectious disease, part of the work is done by the public, and they need to know what to be alert to," she added.
A spokeswoman for the Health Protection Agency said outbreaks at schools in London and Birmingham had contributed "significantly" to the spread of the disease within Britain.
Yesterday, the Department of Health reported 12 new cases in England, bringing the UK total to 215. The new cases include 10 children from Welford Primary School in Handsworth, Birmingham, where 60 cases have already been confirmed. The other two cases include a child in London and an adult in the north-west, who caught the infection from an unknown source.
On Thursday, a seriously ill 37-year-old man was admitted to the Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow with the infection. Eton College in Berkshire was closed for a week from yesterday after a 13-year-old pupil was diagnosed with swine flu.
There have been 8,585 probable and confirmed US cases of the the new H1N1 strain, with 12 deaths and 507 hospitalisations.
Work has begun on a swine flu vaccine, which is expected to go into clinical trials in the next few months. But it is unlikely to be ready for widespread use until October.
A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said: "The agency is committed to keeping the public and health professionals up to date with the current situation on swine flu. We publish figures every day to provide the latest on confirmed cases and have lots of guidance and advice on our website - hpa.org.uk - including information on whether the infections were acquired here or abroad, what age groups are being affected and other important epidemiological data."
• This article was amended on Friday 29 May 2009. In the article above a quote from the Health Protection Agency was added to clarify their current position on the swine flu issue.
