Half of those hospitalized with the new H1N1 virus are under the age of 25, a clear illustration that the pandemic is affecting the young disproportionately, US health officials said on Tuesday.
They said reports from 27 US states show 53 percent of people sick enough to be hospitalized with H1N1 flu are under the age of 25, with only 7 percent of hospitalizations among people 65 and older.
“This is really, really different from what we see with seasonal flu,” the Centers for Disease Control’s Anne Schuchat told reporters. “With seasonal flu, about 60 percent of hospitalizations occur in people 65 and over.”
She stressed the report was incomplete but said if anything, it was underestimating the extent of the pandemic.
An analysis of 292 deaths from 28 states showed that younger people than usual are also dying, she said.
QUARTER OF DEATHS
“Almost a quarter of deaths are occurring in young people under the age of 25. Specifically, 23.6 percent of the deaths are in that age group. About 65 percent of the deaths are in people 25 to 64 years of age,” Schuchat said.
Just 12 percent of deaths were among people over 65. In a normal year, 90 percent of those who die from flu are over 65.
With cooler weather, other viruses and infections are showing up, making the picture confusing.
Schuchat said influenza is being diagnosed in about 30 percent of all people showing up with “influenza-like illness,” symptoms that include cough, sore throat, fever and aches.
Almost all influenza is turning out to be H1N1 rather than seasonal influenza and Schuchat said the tests often miss cases of H1N1, so the percentage may be higher.
Ordinary colds, group A streptococcus, which causes “strep throat,” and other infections can cause similar symptoms.
VACCINATIONS
The US government is trying to vaccinate people against both seasonal influenza and H1N1 at the same time, making both vaccines available as manufacturers finish, bottle and get them approved batch by batch.
US President Barack Obama received his seasonal influenza vaccine on Tuesday, according to a White House spokesman, who said he would “wait his turn” to get an H1N1 vaccine.
Five companies make both types for the US market: Sanofi-Aventis SA, CSL Ltd, Novartis AG, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca unit MedImmune.
Schuchat said H1N1 vaccine was becoming available slowly.
“As of yesterday, 12.8 million doses were available for the states to order. More than half of that was available in the injectable form. So that’s helpful, with giving us a variety of formulations,” she said.
She said states had ordered 10.8 million doses so far.
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine last year while fighting under contract for the Russian military, an investigation by independent Russian media said. Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, died on April 4 last year in “Eastern Europe,” an obituary published by his family said. He was the son of Juliane Gallina, who was appointed the deputy director for digital innovation at the CIA in February last year. The story of how the son of a top-ranking US spy died fighting for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of
RSS