Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
H1N1 Deaths Doubling Almost Every Two Weeks in Europe (Update3)
By Jason Gale
Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu deaths have doubled almost every two weeks since mid October in Europe, with 169 occurring in the past week, the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Across the region, 670 people infected with the new H1N1 influenza strain have died since April, the Stockholm-based ECDC said today in a report on its Web site. Cases are being reported in all European Union and European Free Trade Association countries, ECDC said.
The infection, which causes little more than a sore throat, fever and a cough in the majority of cases, has hospitalized more than 4,400 people in Europe to date. Among those, the U.K. has 180 H1N1 patients in intensive care units, France has 81, the Netherlands 38, Norway 24 and Ireland 20, ECDC said.
?While the most deaths have to date been in Western Europe, there are increasing numbers of deaths being reported from Central and Eastern Europe,? the ECDC said in its daily report.
The number of deaths is three more than the agency stated in an earlier version of the report obtained by Bloomberg News before its scheduled release at 9 a.m. central European time.
H1N1 accounts for more than 99 percent of flu samples tested in Europe, indicating the pandemic virus has supplanted seasonal strains in the region, said John Paget, an epidemiologist at the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research in Utrecht who monitors flu patterns for the World Health Organization?s euroflu.org.
More than 19,000 specimens were positive for H1N1 in Europe during the week ended Nov. 15, Paget said in a telephone interview last week.
?So Many Positive Specimens?
?Normally in flu a season we would have a maximum of 3,000,? he said. ?We have never seen so many positive specimens reported per week since 1996, when we started collecting data.?
Italy, Norway and Sweden reported a ?very high intensity? of influenza-like illness or acute respiratory illness in the past week, the ECDC said. Intensity was ?high? in Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland and Portugal. The remainder reported predominantly ?medium? intensity, it said.
The peak of infections has probably occurred in some countries such as Belgium and Ireland, Paget said. In Belgium?s worst week, flu cases reached the fifth highest in a decade, while Ireland?s peak was the highest in about 10 years, he said.
?We are not seeing spectacularly high ILI rates if you look at historical data,? Paget said. He said no accurate data are available to compare the number of hospitalizations caused by swine flu and the number that occur due to seasonal influenza.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601104&sid=amUEb3XDZ0yk
By Jason Gale
Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu deaths have doubled almost every two weeks since mid October in Europe, with 169 occurring in the past week, the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Across the region, 670 people infected with the new H1N1 influenza strain have died since April, the Stockholm-based ECDC said today in a report on its Web site. Cases are being reported in all European Union and European Free Trade Association countries, ECDC said.
The infection, which causes little more than a sore throat, fever and a cough in the majority of cases, has hospitalized more than 4,400 people in Europe to date. Among those, the U.K. has 180 H1N1 patients in intensive care units, France has 81, the Netherlands 38, Norway 24 and Ireland 20, ECDC said.
?While the most deaths have to date been in Western Europe, there are increasing numbers of deaths being reported from Central and Eastern Europe,? the ECDC said in its daily report.
The number of deaths is three more than the agency stated in an earlier version of the report obtained by Bloomberg News before its scheduled release at 9 a.m. central European time.
H1N1 accounts for more than 99 percent of flu samples tested in Europe, indicating the pandemic virus has supplanted seasonal strains in the region, said John Paget, an epidemiologist at the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research in Utrecht who monitors flu patterns for the World Health Organization?s euroflu.org.
More than 19,000 specimens were positive for H1N1 in Europe during the week ended Nov. 15, Paget said in a telephone interview last week.
?So Many Positive Specimens?
?Normally in flu a season we would have a maximum of 3,000,? he said. ?We have never seen so many positive specimens reported per week since 1996, when we started collecting data.?
Italy, Norway and Sweden reported a ?very high intensity? of influenza-like illness or acute respiratory illness in the past week, the ECDC said. Intensity was ?high? in Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland and Portugal. The remainder reported predominantly ?medium? intensity, it said.
The peak of infections has probably occurred in some countries such as Belgium and Ireland, Paget said. In Belgium?s worst week, flu cases reached the fifth highest in a decade, while Ireland?s peak was the highest in about 10 years, he said.
?We are not seeing spectacularly high ILI rates if you look at historical data,? Paget said. He said no accurate data are available to compare the number of hospitalizations caused by swine flu and the number that occur due to seasonal influenza.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601104&sid=amUEb3XDZ0yk