This week is World Antimicrobial Resistance Week (WAAW). To coincide with this, UKHSA has published our English Surveillance Programme for Antimicrobial Utilisation and Resistance report (ESPAUR) 2024-25. 

The report offers vital insights into the scale of the problem we face as the UK urgently tackles antibiotic resistance through the challenging goals and targets set out in the UK National Action Plan 2024-29. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria of any kind are less likely to respond to treatment, causing serious complications, including bacteraemia – a life-threatening infection where bacteria circulate in the blood – sepsis, and hospitalisation.

The data shows that that the total number of antibiotic-resistant infections in 2024 equates to an average of nearly 400 newly reported cases per week.

Antibiotic resistance occurs naturally but there are ways that it can be tackled, including by limiting antibiotic use to where it’s most needed.

To coincide with WAAW, UKHSA is bringing back its popular mascot ‘Andi Biotic’ with a fresh, fun campaign that sees the bright red and white pill character busting disco moves in unexpected places – including a pharmacy dance floor. 

Building on the success of the first campaign wave earlier this year, Andi Biotic is on a mission to help young adults understand 3 key behaviours that can help tackle antibiotic resistance:

• do not take antibiotics for colds and flu – they do not work for viral infections
• only take antibiotics when prescribed by a healthcare professional, and always take as directed
• never save antibiotics for later or share them with others

We have updated our toolkit to support partners in raising awareness of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the risks of AMR to the nation’s health. This is available on the Campaign Resource Centre.

Together with the Met Office, earlier this week we issued a Yellow and Amber Cold Health Alerts for a number of English regions. This week is the first prolonged cold spell of the season.

You can find out where is affected on the UKHSA Data Dashboard.

We advise stakeholders to sign up to Weather-Health Alerts which are distributed via email. If you would like to receive the alerts, please register and share the link with anyone you feel should be receiving them.

To support stakeholders communicate cold weather messaging this winter, we have produced a cold weather communications toolkit for 2025/26.

The communication material in this toolkit relates specifically to cold weather and is intended to provide basic health information that can be communicated before and during cold spells so the right messages reach the right people at the right time. The content included in this toolkit can be used to target both public and professional audiences. The Cold-Health Alerts and supporting communications focus on health impacts of adverse weather for vulnerable groups.

You can read more about the Weather-Health Alerting system and the Adverse Weather and Health Plan (AWHP) on gov.uk.

We are now publishing our COVID-19, flu and RSV surveillance bulletin every Thursday afternoon. This brings together the latest surveillance data, along with the latest public health advice for COVID-19, flu, RSV and other respiratory infections. This helps inform winter preparedness and response.

The latest UKHSA flu surveillance data continues to show the impact of school half term breaks, with reduced mixing stabilising some flu indicators, though the overall trend remains increasing flu activity. Flu levels remain above what is typical for this time of year, with a ‘drifted’ H3N2 sub-strain driving the unusually early start to the season.

In the week between 3 and 9 November 2025: 

• influenza activity showed mixed trends and is now circulating at low levels; this is an unusually early start to the flu season – levels currently remain low but are expected to rise further
• COVID-19 activity decreased and is at baseline levels
• Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) activity increased but is still at baseline levels 

As flu activity continues to increase, we are issuing a further vaccine call to arms in our fight against flu.

The upward trend in flu cases reinforces the importance of vaccination for anyone eligible, especially as we head into a busy period with greater indoor mixing, when we typically see flu cases going up.

DHSC, UKHSA & NHS England's campaign continues to encourage people who are most vulnerable to stay strong and get vaccinated against flu.

The campaign targets people with conditions including heart, kidney and lung disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, neurological conditions and immunosuppression. 

The campaigns assets can be downloaded from the Campaign Resource Centre. The campaign uses the analogy of suits of armour protecting those vaccinated from the effects of flu. Each condition is displayed as a coat of arms to reinforce recognition.

These have been incorporated into our Winter Health Stakeholder Communications Toolkit 2025/26. This has been developed jointly by UKHSA and NHS England, designed to help with your communications around seasonal vaccines. 

The toolkit is available to download from the Campaign Resource Centre. You can also download from GoogleDrive. 

Please let us know if you cannot access and we can email over the Word or PDF version.

New data published as a pre-print by the UKHSA shows the 2025/26 vaccine is currently 70 to 75% effective at preventing hospital attendance in children aged 2 to 17 years and 30 to 40% effective in adults.

As we said in our press release, these results provide reassuring evidence that this season’s flu vaccines currently offer important protection to children and adults, despite concerns about the new subclade. The high vaccine effectiveness in children strengthens the case for ensuring all eligible young people get vaccinated. When more children are protected, it helps stop the spread of flu to others around them.

Importantly, whatever strains do circulate here this winter, we can be confident that the vaccine will still help to protect those most vulnerable from developing serious illness and being hospitalised. We strongly encourage all those eligible to get vaccinated against flu as soon as possible – it remains our best defence against serious illness.

You can also read more about how effective flu vaccines are in preventing serious illness in our new blog, ‘how well will I be protected from flu this year with the current UK influenza vaccines?’.

Norovirus activity has varied in recent weeks but remains within expected levels.

The rate remained highest among children aged 0 to 4 years.

As we approach the colder months, it’s important to remember the simple steps we can all take to prevent norovirus spreading.

Our blog helps to explain more about norovirus, what to do if you catch it, and how to help stop the spread.

This week we launched a research project to help us assess the risk to children from hidden lead exposure.

There is no safe level of lead exposure, and while less common today, we can still be exposed in our everyday lives and crucially these serious health impacts are preventable. In particular, lead exposure can harm children's development, attention and learning.

Our new study has launched in Leeds and aims to build an initial research cohort of 500 children. Even though only carried out in one area, will tell us if this screening method can be widely used to determine the prevalence levels across the United Kingdom.

As the weather turns colder and we close our windows and turn on our heating, there's an invisible danger that can leak into our homes. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colourless, odourless gas that you cannot see, smell or taste - but it can kill.

Around 20 people die each year in England and Wales from unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning, with many more hospitalised.

Our new blog explains more about this and how people can protect their home and family from the invisible danger of carbon monoxide.