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Swine Flu – CDC Estimates 540 Pediatric Deaths
One of the problems in trying to figure out exactly how serious swine flu is is the fact that the CDC stopped counting cases early on in the pandemic.
Six months in, however, they think they have some pretty reasonable estimates about what’s happened so far. And while swine flu has definitely not proven to be the big killer everyone feared, there’s no doubt that this flu season is serious.
Since April, swine flu has:
- infected roughly 22 million Americans
- put 98,000 people in the hospital. About 36,000 of that number are children, 53,000 adults under 65.
- killed between 2,500 and 6,100 people, probably closer to 4,000 the CDC says.
- caused the death of 540 children.
It’s that last number that’s especially striking. In a typical flu season, 50-80 children die of the flu. It’s only November, and 540 children have died from H1N1. Here’s a graph from the CDC.
This graph shows the number of child deaths from the flu for the last three seasons. What you can clearly see is that H1N1 has actually caused two “seasons” of flu last year, and that this year’s first wave is shaping up to be worse than previous years — even the particularly nasty year of 2007-08. So while swine flu is not necessarily more lethal than seasonal flu, it’s different for two reasons: There’s a heck of a lot more of it going around, and it’s attacking a younger population than seasonal flu.
While the current wave appears to have peaked, Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reminds us that this is a “marathon, not a sprint,” and it’s not too late to stand in line for your flu shots.
Want to know what’s new with the swine flu? See the CDC’s weekly update at Fluview.
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1 Comment
Laure68 commented on Nov 13 09 at 3:12 pmThank you very much for this. I appreciate a post with solid facts, which is most helpful to parents. Now if only the vaccine were more readily available.
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