http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/22/panic-flu-deaths-ukraine-politicians40 - 150 children die annually from normal flu.
CDC had admitted that it had VASTLY underestimated the swine flu
deaths.
In just 6.5 months 300 - 800 children died with 13 - 14 million
infected with swine flu. Which means that it will get much worse.
Given a population of 300 million, i.e. about 30 times, the death
could reach 9000 - 24000 children, alone.
It makes swine flu 200 times worse than all common flu variants
combined altogether.
It makes it vital for Tamilflu to be used quickly as currently
recommended by WHO and CDC.
Despite so much evidence from Mexico and Canada, WHO and CDC didn't
make such clear recommendations making them responsible for all the
unnecessary deaths due to late or even non-administration of Tamilflu,
which is still effective at the moment.
Cases of Tamilflu resistance is increasing and is as predicted by any
intelligent person. Even manufacturers predict it will happen as in
the case of all antiviral and antibiotics.
Published Sunday November 22, 2009
Scientists struggle to explain some cases
THE WASHINGTON POST
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JETERSVILLE, Va. — On Wednesday, Oct. 7, 6-year-old Heaven Skyler
Wilson dragged herself off the school bus that dropped her in front of
her home on a rural road in Jetersville, just south of Richmond. The
little girl, who had never had so much as an ear infection in her
life, was pale and feverish and complained of an upset stomach.
The next day, Heaven's grandmother, Pat Sparrow, took her to a nearby
clinic. Heaven, usually a bright, bubbly girl with blond pigtails,
dimples and effusive energy, had a sore throat and a 103-degree
temperature. The doctor swabbed her for the flu, and the test was
positive.
It was just something going around, Sparrow said she was told. The
doctor told Sparrow to take Heaven home, give her Tylenol and chicken
broth, and let her rest.
By the next morning, Heaven couldn't breathe. Sparrow called 911.
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"How does she sound?" Sparrow said the dispatcher calmly asked.
Sparrow's panicked husband held the phone to the child's heaving
lungs. "This is how she's breathing! Will you get here now?"
He scooped the child in his arms and rushed across the lawn to meet
the ambulance. By the time they arrived at Chippenham Hospital in
Richmond about 30 minutes later, Heaven's face was blue. Emergency
room doctors intubated her and put her on a respirator.
Two weeks later, on Oct. 21, ravaged with double pneumonia and a staph
infection that deprived her brain of oxygen, Heaven was disconnected
from the respirator. She lived for four minutes.
At 11:18 p.m., Heaven died in the arms of her mother, Sara Wilson.
"You never heard such an awful scream from someone who loved her child
so much," Sparrow said, her voice shaking.
This year's swine flu is, by official standards, a "mild to moderate"
pandemic. As in every year, with every seasonal flu, people get sick.
Some are hospitalized. And some die. But it is the seemingly random
deaths of healthy, young people such as Heaven that are driving much
of the fear around swine flu.
With seasonal flu, 90 percent of the people who die are older than 65;
most of those victims are older than 85. The worst outbreaks of
seasonal flu are usually reported in nursing homes. But with this
year's H1N1 strain, the demographics are reversed. Now, most of those
dying are younger than 65, the worst outbreaks are in schools and the
highest hospitalization rate is among children younger than 4.
Forty to 150 children die from the seasonal flu every year. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently said that it had
vastly underestimated the number of children who have died from swine
flu. The number of pediatric deaths had previously been reported to be
129. Now, the government estimates that 300 to 800 children died
between April 1 and Oct. 17. During that period, 14 million to 34
million Americans came down with swine flu, the CDC said.
Nationwide, about one-third of the children who have died were, like
Heaven, otherwise healthy, CDC officials and other reports said.
Heaven was the first and only confirmed H1N1 victim in Virginia to die
despite having no underlying complications or health condition. Of the
27 Virginia swine flu victims who have died since April, three have
been children.
The mystery over a relative handful of cases is fueling anxiety about
the scarcity of vaccine, jamming switchboards at pediatricians'
offices and sending concerned parents to overflowing health clinics.
(That eagerness to get the vaccine is, however, a minority phenomenon:
In a Washington Post-ABC News poll last month, more than six in 10 of
those surveyed said they will not get vaccinated, and only 52 percent
of parents planned to have their children vaccinated.)
Scientists are at a loss to explain why perfectly healthy young people
might die from the flu.
"Why would younger individuals, otherwise healthy, succumb to this
virus?" asked Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "That, in the experience we have
generally with other viruses, rarely, rarely happens. We don't know
the answer to that. But that is the thing that scares parents,
understandably."
In any flu, death most often comes because the virus has so weakened
the lungs and body that infection sets in.
Beth Bell, an associate director of the CDC's National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said many of the children who
have died had no underlying medical condition but succumbed to a
secondary bacterial infection.
"That's one of the reasons why we say that if a child appears to be
getting better, then gets worse again, that's a danger sign," Bell
said. A child might be recovering from the viral infection when common
bacteria that naturally colonize in the nose, mouth or throat begin to
reproduce wildly and take hold of the weakened body. "We don't know
why that might be," Bell said. "But it's not a time to wait."
