From the category archives:

Signs of Swine Flu

Morbid Obesity as a Risk Factor for Hospitalization and Death due to 2009 H1N1

Among Americans 20 years and older, 28% are obese and 5% are morbidly obese. During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, early reports from the United States and abroad suggested that obesity was more frequent among persons hospitalized with 2009 H1N1 disease or who died following 2009 H1N1 infection. Since that time, a number of studies have [...]

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H1N1 flu can attack the heart

Doctors at Rady Children’s Hospital have detailed the cases of four San Diego County children who developed heart infections after becoming ill with swine flu, a life-threatening complication that has received scant attention.  Two of those children, identified as a 3-month-old girl and a 9-month-old girl, survived their ordeals after suffering heart failure and spending [...]

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Swine Flu Statistics

For the vast majority, H1N1 is a flu like any other, in that it is self limiting. For a small segment – those at risk of complications – it is a flu like no other. Who do we vaccinate?THERE have been several developments since the H1N1 pandemic was declared by the World Health Organisation WHO [...]

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Influenza virus sparking gastrointestinal illness in children

Results: Seasonal influenza A or influenza B viral RNA was detected in 85 11.6% upper respiratory specimens and 21 2.9% of stool specimens. Influenza B virus was isolated from the stool specimen of one case.During the time of this study, human infections with highly pathogenic avian influenza A H5N1 virus were common in the survey [...]

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Tamiflu Resistant Flu More Lethal?

However, this explosion of cases has also been associated with fatalities, raising concerns that not only was the H1N1 with H274Y efficiently transmitted, but that it was lethal. At Duke the epidemiology supported human to human transmission and three of the four cases died, raising concerns that the H1N1 was more lethal. The Delaware case [...]

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Swine flu several times more lethal to under 50s than seasonal flu?

According to CDC estimates that are often quoted, the nation has about 200,000 flu-related hospitalizations and 36,000 deaths in an average flu season, with about 90% of the deaths occurring in elderly people. Frieden noted today that the pandemic estimates are not derived in the same way as these seasonal flu estimates. While the estimation [...]

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Mild HIN1 pandemic? Bite your tongue

It’s challenging our healthcare system unlike any previous seasonal influenza season over the past 30 years. That makes it hard for me to call this a “mild” pandemic. I just don’t believe the term works. Yes, there are mild, moderate, or severe influenza illnesses on an individual basis. But how do we describe a pandemic [...]

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Pandemic Much Milder Than Expected?

Another measure is the number of people who get sick enough to require hospital care. Lipsitch says if 15 percent of Americans get this flu, “then we would expect anywhere from about 70,000 up to over 600,000 hospitalizations.” He says the figure will probably end up somewhere in the middle, about where we’d be in [...]

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New York Study – 2009 H1N1 Influenza Damages Entire Airway

n fatal cases of 2009 H1N1 influenza, the virus can damage cells throughout the respiratory airway, much like the viruses that caused the 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics, report researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. The scientists reviewed autopsy reports, hospital records and [...]

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Flu vaccine safety : Effect Measure

We are neither reassured or alarmed. There is insufficient data at the moment to make any judgement about rare events. If we saw something now it would have to be a very strong signal, the epidemiological equivalent to being whacked over the head with a two-by-four. The risks of the virus itself are two-by-four in [...]

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