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Lyn Finelli, a flu surveillance official with the CDC, made the one million estimate in a presentation to the vaccine panel of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in Atlanta. The number is derived from mathematical modeling, based on surveys by health officials.
She said half those cases were in New York City and 6% or more of some urban areas were affected. The percentage of the cases needing hospital treatment was growing despite the normal flu season being over, perhaps due to closer scrutiny of very sick patients.
Regular seasonal flu affects anywhere from 15 million to 60 million Americans each year. Other health problems have been a contributory factor in most cases: about one in three of the hospital cases had asthma or chronic lung disease, 16% diabetes, 12% immune system problems and 11% chronic heart disease besides 10% are current smokers and 7% are pregnant women.
An analysis of 99 of the 127 Americans who died of swine flu shows that 87 of them also suffered from one underlying condition or the other: 11% had asthma, 24% other lung diseases, 13% diabetes, 11% morbid obesity and 34% obesity.
The average age of swine flu patients is 12, the average age for patients who needed hospital treatment is 20, and for people who died, 37. It seems to be the deadliest to persons 65 and older, with deaths in more than 2% of the elderly- infected, Finelli said. The numbers again highlighted how the young seemed to be particularly at risk of catching the new virus. But data also showed that the flu had been more dangerous to adults who contracted it.
Finelli said there had been five swine flu deaths among pregnant women; most were in their 20s. They died at various trimesters of pregnancy: one in the first, another in the second, and three in the third. The underlying conditions were not known for all the women, but several had none.
The CDC count includes 3,065 persons treated in hospitals and 127 deaths. The estimate from a still-being-analyzed CDC study, voiced by her, did not come as a surprise to experts monitoring the virus.
"We knew diagnosed cases were just the tip of the iceberg," said Dr William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert attending the Atlanta meeting.
Meanwhile, the virus is continuing its spread through the Southern Hemisphere, infecting more persons. In the Southern Hemisphere, which is one month into its flu season, several countries, particularly Chile, Argentina and Australia, are already feeling the effects of the new virus. Chile has more than 4,000 laboratory-confirmed cases and seven deaths, Argentina more than 1,200 cases and 17 deaths, and Australia 3,200 cases and three deaths.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) based in the Swiss city of Geneva, as of Wednesday, there were 238 confirmed deaths, besides 55,867 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu in 109 countries attributed to the A(H1N1 | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) virus since the epidemic broke out in Mexico.
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