WASHINGTON -- The new H1N1 swine flu infected about 800,000 New Yorkers -- or one in 10 -- last spring, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed yesterday.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, who until June was New York City's health commissioner, said a study due to be released this week suggested that the virus spread wide around all five boroughs.
"That's a lot of people," he told C-SPAN, adding that there was a twentyfold variation in flu infections nationwide. "We expect that some places will have more flu, some places will have less."
Swine flu has infected more than 1 million Americans and is now the CDC's No. 1 priority. Older kids and young adults are by far the likeliest to be infected, research shows.
The World Health Organization predicts that a third of the world's population will eventually contract the virus.
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