'It's worse than Covid,' says principal as 170 pupils off sick in one day

The principal of a County Londonderry school has said it is like "being back in Covid times" after 170 pupils were off sick on one day alone.

Brian Guthrie of Ebrington Primary School said some children had to attend hospital and a small number were admitted for treatment last week.

Confirmed flu cases among adults and children across Northern Ireland have more than trebled in the last two weeks, rising from 273 to 954, official figures show.

Mr Guthrie said classroom assistants at his school were also absent because of illness.

"It's not just been flu, it's been stomach bugs, very sore throats and illnesses in other ways as well but over the course of last week, it was very, very challenging with the number of pupils and staff off," Mr Guthrie told BBC's North West Today programme.

"It took me back to 2020, to be quite honest, the attendance was actually worse last week than it would have been at any of the worst points, if you like, back in Covid times so, yeah, it was a bit of a shock."

The impact of the high levels of absence, Mr Guthrie said, meant teachers were not able to carry out new learning in terms of literacy and numeracy.

"It was hitting the younger children more at the start of last week but towards the end of the week, we noticed that it was the upper end of school, our P5-to-P7s, where we were seeing a higher absence rate but at the start of last week, it was more primary one, primary two," he said.

Seasonal illnesses, including flu, rise every winter - but experts have predicted this year's flu season could be the worst in a decade.

It is affecting young people in particular and a children's doctor in Belfast said it is the worst influenza outbreak she has seen.

In the week ending 30 November, under-fives had the highest number of confirmed flu cases of any age group, according to the latest data published by the Public Health Agency, (PHA).

Over the same period five to 14-year-olds had the highest positivity rate (54.2%) meaning although fewer of them were tested - those that were tested were more likely to have the flu.

Liam Bradley, a community pharmacist in Derry, said the demand for the flu vaccine this year has been greater than last year.

"Every pharmacy is allocated a certain quota of vaccines and we had used our quotas in all our branches and we have ordered more," he said.

"There may be temporary shortages of vaccines because the pharmacies have used up their quota but the Department of Health would be trying to ensure that everybody gets the vaccine."

He said it takes about seven to 10 days for the vaccine to give people protection against flu.