Swine Flu
Swine Flu Kills 43 Children in Less Than Two Months
Eighty-six children have died of H1N1 (swine flu) in the United States since it first appeared last spring, with 43 deaths reported in September and early October alone, says the Center for Disease Control’s Dr. Anne Schuchat.
On Friday the government health authorities said another 11 children had died of the virus just last week.
The CDC said about half of child deaths from the month of September were teenagers.
And across the country, the number of deaths caused by pneumonia and flu-like illnesses have already reached the CDC’s threshold for being considered an epidemic.
“These are very sobering statistics,” says Schuchat.
This new influenza strain differs from the usual winter flu because it has affected more children and the death rate has received increasing attention.
More children have died from H1N1 so far this year than the total number of child deaths in the entire flu season in some past winters.
In addition, unlike the usual winter flu, swine flu can sometimes cause a very serious viral pneumonia in young adults in good health, warns the World Health Organization.
In general, people weakened by the flu are susceptible to bacterial pneumonia, especially among the elderly. But H1N1 can has been going deeper into the lungs in a number of patients who go into respiratory failure within days, said WHO official Dr. Nikki Shindo.
“Do not delay the treatment,” she warned at the end of a three-day meeting of international influenza specialists in Washington.