Word: h1n1
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...number of H1N1 cases continues to climb in the U.S., researchers are collecting more and more data on the spread of the pandemic flu and getting a clearer picture of its victims - who is most vulnerable to H1N1, how the most severe cases progress and which risk factors tend to contribute to life-threatening disease. That data is now helping public-health officials identify some critical H1N1 trends, which may enable them to treat patients more effectively and hopefully control the disease as it peaks in the coming months...
...latest study, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, offers a snapshot of 1,088 H1N1 cases in California that were severe enough to require hospitalization - or resulted in death - between April 23 and Aug. 11 of this year. Experts at the California Department of Public Health, who led the study, say their findings are largely in line with the growing body of data on the worldwide pandemic flu, confirming, for instance, that the 2009 H1N1 flu disproportionately affects younger patients. The California research team found that the median age of hospitalized H1N1 patients...
...While H1N1 infection results in mild or moderate disease in most patients - indeed, the most severe cases account for a small proportion of overall infections - a subset of patients are harder hit, the data show. And in those patients, the disease can often quickly become life-threatening. "The major point of our findings is that there has been a lot of perception that this is a mild disease, and a lot of people may be ambivalent about vaccination," says Dr. Janice Louie, a public-health medical officer at the California Department of Public Health and the study's lead author...
...Among hospitalized patients in the study, 118 died - an overall 11% fatality rate. Although the rate of hospitalization was highest among infants under 2 months old, the rate of death was highest in patients over age 50; H1N1 was least likely to turn fatal in patients under age 17. Yet with all the focus in the media on the vulnerability of younger patients to infection, the elderly may have been somewhat dangerously overlooked, says Louie. Although older patients may not be at high risk of getting infected in the first place (thanks to their residual immunity to the virus from...
...candy for decades, and this year a forensic lab in DuPage County, outside Chicago, will inspect suspicious sweets using technology that's usually reserved for homicide, sexual assault and burglary. Health officials are warning against letting kids scoop up candy with their germy hands, lest they spread H1N1 flu to other revelers. In Bobtown, Pa., spooked officials have banned trick-or-treating altogether. But is trick-or-treating really dangerous...