Summer health watch summary: 24 July 2014
Published 24 July 2014
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1. Summary of environmental hazards
1.1 Heatwave
On 16 July 2014 a level 2 heatwave alert (alert and readiness) was issued for the West Midlands, East Midlands, South East, East of England and London regions. On 20 July 2014 the heatwave alert level reverted to level 1 (heatwave and summer preparedness programme) for all regions.
1.2 UV
The Public Health England (PHE) solar radiation monitoring stations across the UK reported typical peak UV Index values for this time of year. However, only Camborne, Cornwall, experienced relatively clear days (17 and 20 July) with a peak UV Index of 7 (high). All other sites experienced cloudy conditions. Chilton, London and Swansea recorded peak UV Index values of 6 (high) for short periods, whilst Belfast, Glasgow, Inverness and Lerwick recorded peak values of 5 (moderate).
1.3 Air pollution
Daily information on air quality and measured levels of air pollution across the UK is available from the UK AIR: Air information resource
2. Health impacts
2.1 Syndromic surveillance
There was an increase in NHS 111 calls for heat/sunstroke during week 29 in line with recent warm weather.
There have been increases in asthma and difficulty breathing indicators at the weekend, coinciding with thunderstorm activity.
Several systems have seen slight increases in gastroenteritis indicators over the past 2 weeks, particularly in infants.
2.2 Laboratory surveillance
Gastrointestinal disease activity is around seasonally expected levels. The number of laboratory reports of the major gastrointestinal pathogens (campylobacter, salmonella, cryptosporidium, norovirus) in the season to date are similar to the 5-year seasonal average.
2.3 Mortality surveillance
In week 28, 2014, no excess all-cause mortality by week of death was seen across the UK through the EuroMOMO algorithm.