Regular flu has killed thousands since January

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Regular flu has killed thousands since January

updated 6:58 p.m. EDT, Tue April 28, 2009

By Doug Gross

CNN

(CNN) -- There had been no confirmed deaths in the United States related to swine flu as of Tuesday afternoon. But another virus had killed thousands of people since January and is expected to keep killing hundreds of people every week for the rest of the year.

That one? The regular flu.

An outbreak of swine flu that is suspected in more than 150 deaths in Mexico and has sickened dozens of people in the United States and elsewhere has grabbed the attention of a nervous public and of medical officials worried the strain will continue to mutate and spread.

Experts are nervous that, as a new strain, the swine flu will be harder to stop because there aren't any vaccines to fight it.

But even if there are swine-flu deaths outside Mexico -- and medical experts say there very well may be -- the virus would have a long way to go to match the roughly 36,000 deaths that seasonal influenza causes in the United States each year.

"That happens on an annual basis," Dr. Brian Currie said Tuesday. Currie is vice president and medical director at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, New York.

Since January, more than 13,000 people have died of complications from seasonal flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly report on the causes of death in the nation.

No fewer than 800 flu-related deaths were reported in any week between January 1 and April 18, the most recent week for which figures were available.

The report looks at deaths in the 122 largest cities in the United States.

Worldwide, the annual death toll from the flu is estimated to be between 250,000 and 500,000.

About 9 out of 10 of those deaths are among people older than 65, Currie said. Most times, they already have health problems that the flu makes worse, he said.

"Regular influenza can be taxing," he said. "It causes their underlying disease to decompensate and then they don't have the reserves to get through it.

"While it may not be the direct cause listed on the death certificate, it certainly contributed."

One of the reasons medical experts are nervous about the swine flu outbreak is that many of the people who have died in Mexico have been young and otherwise healthy. The strains found in the United States have so far been weaker.

But even the regular flu is sometimes fatal for younger victims.

"It's not unheard of. It happens, either directly from influenza or they get a bacterial superinfection" like staph, said Currie.

While researchers haven't developed a vaccine to fight the new swine flu, it can be treated with antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza, the same drugs used on the regular flu.

Many times, seasonal flu itself is tough to prevent because it has mutated to a form different than it was when the vaccine was made.

Seeking to put the swine flu outbreak in perspective Tuesday, Los Angeles County public health officer Dr. Jonathan Fielding echoed other public officials calling it "cause for concern, but not for alarm."

"Given the size of L.A. County, given the traffic between here and Mexico, it would be very surprising if we didn't have any cases," Fielding said.

He said the county, where the CDC had confirmed 10 cases of swine flu by Tuesday, sees more than 1,000 flu-related deaths every year.

"So it would also not be surprising if there were deaths with swine flu -- even if it had the pattern of seasonal flu," he said. "Thus far, the pattern we see in the United States is very similar to that of seasonal flu -- relatively mild to moderate cases."

CNN link

[Nagishkaw 510]

Lock yourself inside, avoid all contact with people. Power wash everything in bleach and you should be ok.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The media is overreacting as usual.

[Ban Hammer 13,349]

Lock yourself inside, avoid all contact with people. Power wash everythingone in bleach and you should be ok.

fixxored

[Nagishkaw 510]

There ya go!

[rclouse 0]

I had the flu two weeks ago, it's possible it was the swine variety. Didn't infect my kids or wife, got over it in a week.

This is the media making a big deal out of a little deal in order to attract eyeballs, nothing else.

[sara535 15]

theres been a case diagnosed in a child here in my small little central california town. this morning the school the infected child attended was closed by the county health department. I am torn between agreeing its all a bunch of media hype and wanting to be sure my kids dont get it either....

[almaty 19]

President Obama didn't have a single word to say about "swine flu" today. But he had a lot to say about the outbreak of the "H1N1" virus. That should make the hog industry happier.

U.S. officials, particularly the agricultural department, were under pressure from the pork lobby that fears the term "swine flu" is confusing people into thinking they can catch the virus from pork, which they can't, the AP says.

Or as Pork News explains, the government believes that the term swine flu "might be catchy, but it's not accurate."

Israeli officials have also weighed in. This week, deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman, who belongs to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, suggested renaming swine flu as "Mexican flu," saying that the reference to pigs is offensive to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, The Guardian reports.

That, to no one's surprise, did not please the Mexican government, which quickly registered an official complaint, prompting Israel to back down.

Although Mexico has reported the biggest outbreak, the AP says that no one really knows where the virus began. The news agency notes that the infamous 1918 pandemic was first called the "Spanish flu," although it may well have started in Kansas.

So the U.S. government is now officially going with "H1N1" even though the bureaucracy is finding it hard to shake the old "swine flu" label.

Here's what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is calling its website for the latest information on the virus:

[Ban Hammer 13,349]

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Swine flu sounds cooler than regular flu.

People are reducing their consumption of pork products too. People are stupid.

[Peikko 1,575]

My understanding is, that 'regular' flu is part of a yearly cycle - there being more cases in certain months of the year than others but that it is a background virus that we are all exposed to from time to time.

A 'pandemic' flu outbreak does not respect the flu cycle, is a more virulent strain that seriously affects young healthy people as well as sick/old/extremely young which a 'normal' flue affects. The risks of a 'swine' flu are more serious because normally this flu is only caught from the original host animal by a very small number of individuals but that these individuals can't pass this on to another human. Once a mutation occurs (as has in this case) were the cross species jump is accompanied by the ability to pass from human to human, the risk of a pandemic looms because this is a new virus, one that will have a much smaller number of people immune to because of it's uniqueness.

Edited April 29, 2009 by Madame Cleo

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

The CNN article says that. ^

[Peikko 1,575]

I bet it wasn't rife with misspelling and odd sentence structure though

[AlHayatZween 2]

"H1N1" virus.

that sounds much worse in my opinion...

that sounds like a secret viral weapon of Obi-Wan Kenobi proportions.