SALT LAKE CITY, Jun 17, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Hospitals in Salt Lake City
report the H1N1 flu outbreak remains with a patient-a-day being admitted to
intensive care units in the Utah city.
Six Salt Lake County residents have died of the disease also called swine flu,
four in the past week, and nearly 100 have been hospitalized since the outbreak
began.
"Utah seems to be having a lot more of this than the rest of the country, in
terms of severity of disease," said Dr. Nathan Dean, chief of the pulmonary unit
at LDS Hospital. "It is partly because we have larger numbers of influenza than
surrounding states. ... We're just trying to figure this out."
The Salt Lake Tribune said Wednesday that doctors have taken note of a tendency
for ailing patients to also be overweight, although obesity does not seem to
have caused any other significant health issues.
"It's not like they're so obese they have gone into heart failure, observed
Dean. "Somehow, the disease is striking them."
Many patients, however, develop respiratory problems and septic shock. Septic
shock is normally associated with bacterial infections rather than flu virus,
however no such infections have been found.
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Copyright 2009 by United Press International