Speaking before the release of the data, Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, said that action might be needed to tame inflationary pressures.
Brazil's epidemic rivals America's as the worst in the world; it may need help from the IMF to avoid a debt crisis, or turn instead to inflationary finance.
Prices of coal and steel, the first to heat up, are already levelling off, making the increases seem big one-off changes rather than the start of inflationary spirals.