By MIKE STOBBE,
AP
ATLANTA (Oct. 9) - Health officials said Friday that 76 children have died of swine flu in the U.S., including 16 new reports in the past week — more evidence the new virus is unusually dangerous in kids.
The regular flu kills between 46 and 88 children a year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Symptoms of Swine Flu (click title to entry)
-Fever,
-Cough,
-Sore throat
-Runny nose
-Body aches
-Headache
-Chills
-Fatigue.
-Many people with swine flu have had diarrhea and vomiting.
-Nearly everyone with flu has at least two of these symptoms.
With the symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea comes fluid depletion of healthy body fluid balance. Anytime there is diarrhea and/or vomiting there is loss of 'electrolytes.' The loss of fluid and electrolytes from the body cause higher chances of severe illness, hospitalization and death.
Fluid depletion in children make any illness far worse and more likely to cause hospitalization of the child.
From Web MD (click here):
Who is at highest risk from H1N1 swine flu?
Most U.S. cases of H1N1 swine flu have been in children and young adults. It's not clear why, and it's not clear whether this will change.
But certain groups are at particularly high risk of severe disease or bad outcomes if they get the flu:
Pregnant women are six times more likely to have severe flu disease than women who are not pregnant.
Young children, especially those under 2 years of age
People with cardiovascular conditions (except high blood pressure)
People with liver problems
People with kidney problems
People with blood disorders, including sickle cell disease
People with neurologic disorders
People with neuromuscular disorders
People with metabolic disorders, including diabetes
People with immune suppression, including HIV infection and medications that suppress the immune system, such as cancer chemotherapy or anti-rejection drugs for transplants
Residents of a nursing home or other chronic-care facility
Elderly people are at high risk of severe flu disease -- if they get it. Relatively few swine flu cases have been seen in people over age 65.
People in these groups should seek medical care as soon as they get flu symptoms.
A striking number of adults who developed severe swine flu complications have been morbidly obese. However, obesity itself does not seem to be the issue. The vast majority of extremely obese people suffer respiratory problems and/or diabetes, which seem to be the underlying reason for their severe flu complications....
Obesity is a 'co-morbidity' with this virus because 'genetically' it has two components of swine, one of human and one of avian. It is the avain part of the virus that is making it more virulent, in my opinion. Obesity doesn't mean it predisposes a person to the virus, but, once having been infected the illness will have a greater severity due to the 'double measure of swine' component to the virus.
Viruses are nasty things. They aren't autonomously able to reproduce, they use the host's cells RNA to replicate. So, obese people have a more 'homey' environment to this virus and find it easier to replicate and cause more stress on the host.
With escalating deaths this early in the season it will increase exponently and there is absolutely no reason to 'play' with thing. Take the regular vaccine for The Flu and take the Swine Flu vaccine when it is available.
I realize it is a new vaccine and the absolute outcome is unknown, but, what is known is that people are beginning to die from this virus in numbers that should be a red flag.
US, other nations stop counting pandemic flu cases (click here)
By MIKE STOBBE (AP) – 1 day ago
ATLANTA — U.S. health officials have lost track of how many illnesses and deaths have been caused by the first global flu epidemic in 40 years.
And they did it on purpose.
Government doctors stopped counting swine flu cases in July, when they estimated more than 1 million were infected in this country. The number of deaths has been sitting at more than 600 since early September. Health officials had previously counted lab-confirmed cases, though the tally was skewed because many people who got sick never were tested.
Other nations have stopped relying on lab-confirmed cases, too, and health officials say the current monitoring system is adequate. But not having specific, accurate counts of swine flu means the government doesn't have a clear picture of how hard the infection is hitting some groups of people, said Andrew Pekosz, a flu expert at Johns Hopkins University....
