One report targeted the initial flu outbreak in Mexico, which included 2,155 cases of swine flu reported by the end of April. Researchers focused on the 100 people who died and what caused those deaths.
They found that 87 percent of the deaths and 71 percent of the cases of pneumonia were seen in people aged 5 to 59 years. That's unlike what is seen with seasonal flu epidemics, in which, on average, 17 percent of those in that age range who are seriously ill die and 32 percent develop severe pneumonia.
"The main finding is the capability of H1N1 of producing severe damage to previously healthy individuals," said the study's lead researcher, Dr. Rogelio Perez-Padilla, from the Mexico City institute.
"
Do not disregard the epidemic as mild or irrelevant," Perez-Padilla urged
SHOOT: Meanwhile the media feeds our compacency by saying the symptoms are consistently mild. 32 percent develop severe pneumonia. That's coughing up blood. That's painful and it's not no big deal.
Just in:
Pregnant Spanish woman dies of Swine flu.
MONDAY, June 29 (HealthDay News) -- With a worldwide pandemic under way and more than a million Americans sickened by the new swine flu, the special nature of this disease is becoming better understood.
Several articles published online Monday by the New England Journal of Medicine show that, unlike seasonal flu, the new H1N1 flu strain attacks younger people and can be more severe and deadly in that group. The reports suggest a possible vaccination policy and also account for some reasons that this strain of flu appears milder than that of other pandemics.
"These findings are in keeping with the fact that new strains or pandemic strains tend to be more deadly in younger patients," said flu expert Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at New York University's Langone Medical Center in New York City.
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