11 Nov 2009

Swine flu not so harmless

According to the Italian Minister of Health the fatal cases of the swine flu are 34 (0.0043%), people in intensive care 108 (0.013%). There are no official data about the age of the victims, but Ansa press agency reports that a large part of the fatal cases are young (maybe 90%). In the past days the Deputy Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio kept repeating that seasonal flu causes each year 8,000 victims, so the death rate of the swine flu is much less of the one of the seasonal flu. But is this correct? Really the swine flu is so mild? The Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) has published data about the causes of death in 2006. The flu killed 298 people (22 in people under age 65), and all the pneumonia 6,749.
Actually, the swine flu is going to change the mortality pattern, especially for young people.

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