ATLANTA, Nov 12, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- An estimated 22 million people in the
United States have become ill from H1N1 influenza and some 3,900 people have
died, health officials said Thursday.
Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the CDC
has been providing H1N1 fatality rates from laboratory confirmed cases until now
but the new estimates cover April, when the virus emerged, through Oct. 17 --
the first six months of the pandemic.
"Our estimates, we believe, give us a better estimate of how much disease,
hospitalization and death there is than we would get by just counting individual
laboratory confirmed cases," Schuchat said at a media briefing in Atlanta. "Our
estimates derive from our emerging infections probing network -- a collaboration
with 10 states, 62 counties in those 10 states that collect extensive
information on hospitalizations from influenza including details about
laboratory testing and age and so forth."
The CDC are using data from aggregate state reporting of laboratory
hospitalizations and death. Schuchat emphasized the increase in numbers was not
from any jump in H1N1 in the last week, but estimates for the first six months
of H1N1.
"With those two surveillance symptoms, we are then extrapolating to the whole
United States and the entire period of this first six months," Schuchat said.
The CDC estimates 63,000-153,000 people were hospitalized up until Oct. 17.
Schuchat said the CDC estimates there were 3,900 fatalities in the first six
months of the pandemic but the number could range from 2,500-6,100.
As of Nov. 6, national pediatric death notification system data indicated 129
children had died but Schuchat said the CDC now estimates 540 children died from
the pandemic in the first six months.
"We know that a number of the deaths that we're seeing are occurring outside the
hospital where testing is not possible," Schuchat said. "We know that not every
patient with influenza gets a diagnosis of flu. We think our 540 number is a
better estimate."
URL: www.upi.com
Copyright 2009 by United Press International