Flu infection has been “almost wiped out” in Britain after it recorded its lowest levels of the infection in 130 years, as per media reports.

According to The Sunday Times report, the figures demonstrate that the number of people infected by the bug has declined by 95 per cent, suggesting that its end is near.

The newspaper stated that during the second week of January, the number of flu-like illnesses reported to GPs was just 1.1 per 100,000 compared to a five-year average rate of 27 per 1,0,000.

Simon de Lusignan, professor of primary care at the University of Oxford and director of the Royal College of GPs research and surveillance centre, said influenza had now been “almost completely wiped out.”

John McCauley, director of the World Health Organisation’s collaborating centre for reference and research on influenza, told Sunday Times: “The last time we had evidence of such low rates was when we were still just counting influenza deaths, and that was in 1888, before the 1889-90 flu pandemic.”

The experts believe that the figure plummeted due to improved hygiene that was largely followed because of the coronavirus pandemic and protocols. This has helped limit the spread of the flu.

Last year, the British government urged the public to take flu jabs to reduce the burden on the NHS as coronavirus cases overwhelmed the country.

In December the free flu vaccine programme was given to the elderly as part of an expanded jab rollout in the face of the “twin threats” of flu and coronavirus.

Last week, NHS England’s chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said that he hopes to see a vaccine that is the combination of flu and coronavirus vaccine and can prevent the spread of both the infections.

Sir Simon told the Health and Social Care Committee: “it would be great if the Covid vaccine and flu vaccine ends up being combined into a single vaccine, which we might see if not this winter but future winters as well.”

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