As the UK is set to face the worst flu season in a decade, experts are warning that the early surge and crisis-level NHS pressures point to an underlying and overlooked issue of increasingly weakened immune systems
According to NHS data, seasonal viruses sent more than 600,000, around one person in every 116, to hospital in the winter of 2024, with admissions quadrupling in a single month during the peak. Figures also show that flu deaths in England rose to 7,757 during the same time period, more than doubling from 3,555 the previous year.
As recent reports highlight a new mutation of flu, the NHS are preparing for the worst season in a decade. Flu hospitalisations are once again predicted to surge, and bed occupancy is expected to reach crisis levels. On average, only 10 out of 90 days of winter last year, around one-ninth, saw hospital bed occupancy drop below 92%. At one point last January, adult general and acute hospital bed occupancy hit a first-ever record high of 96%.
Another emerging concern is the impact rising viral illnesses could have on winter workforce capacity. Last year saw some of the highest levels of staff sickness in a decade, particularly from respiratory infections. Early modelling suggests that workplace absences this winter may again surge, increasing pressure on essential services and leaving fewer people able to care for dependents, attend appointments or support overstretched healthcare teams.
While high infection rates, new strains, and the NHS being pushed to full capacity, are the headline concerns, experts at neuromodulation company, Parasym are emphasising that overwhelming pressure on the NHS at this time of the year, may not be driven solely by an increase in seasonal viruses, but by an overlooked and underexplored, underlying issue about how the body is responding to infection.
How Vagus Nerve Stimulation Can Help
When people catch viruses, it’s often the body’s reaction to the viral infection, especially the level of inflammation, that determines how sick they become. Looking into this reaction is key to understanding why so many patients are becoming severely ill and require hospitalisation, placing disproportionate strain on the NHS.
Experts at Parasym are calling for our attention to pivot towards the role of the nervous system, specifically the vagus nerve, in the regulation of immune and inflammatory responses in the body. Positive outcomes from Parasym’s clinical trials using non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation with their Nurosym device highlight the potential of neuromodulation to support the body’s inflammatory and recovery processes, helping the body immunise both against viral illness, recover quicker, and restore better health after illness.
Parasym’s clinical trials show that VNS reduced markers of inflammation by up to 78%, while also decreasing post-viral symptoms by 61%, which could support a faster post-viral recovery and help to free up hospital beds during peak winter demand.
Better immune function also lowers the risk of dangerous secondary complications such as pneumonia, heart problems, or exacerbation of chronic illnesses, keeping more people out of intensive care. While Nurosym is not a replacement for vaccines, antiviral treatments, or infection-control measures, vagus nerve stimulation is emerging as a promising complementary approach that may strengthen the UK’s resilience to seasonal viral infections.
Head of Research at Parasym, Dr Elisabetta Burchi, commented:
“Influenza infection rates and hospitalisations have increased in the past several years, with a marked resurgence after the COVID-19 pandemic. The hypothesised reasons behind this trend of shorter, but more intense influenza epidemics are multifactorial, including suboptimal vaccination coverage, antigenic drift of circulating influenza strains, and changing social mixing behaviours with more frequent and prolonged close-contact interactions in households.
“In addition to public health recommendations which prioritise increased access and delivery of vaccination as well as implementation of infection prevention measures and prompt diagnosis and initiation of antiviral treatment in patients at high risk for complications, it might be important to tackle the problem also through additional deployable approaches which aim to boost people’s intrinsic immune resilience.
“Among these approaches, non-invasive VNS delivered through Nurosym has been shown to improve many symptoms associated with chronic post-viral syndromes by enhancing immune regulation and suppressing inflammatory cytokines. As an excessive and dysregulated immune response to the virus can be a key driver of complications during influenza infection, Nurosym could potentially be useful to improve health outcomes in patients who develop excessive inflammatory responses or are not responding to standard therapies and are at risk for cytokine-mediated complications.”