H1N1 is still spreading rapidly, although most of the media has given it very little attention lately. The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) latest report indicates that over 25,000 people in 73 countries have been confirmed with the 2009 H1N1 influenza.

The WHO is reportedly reluctant to raise the Pandemic Alert Level from 5, where it is now, to 6 (signifying we are in a pandemic) because of the potential panic that might follow. Unfortunately, this delay is causing too little attention to be focused on this problem, which also is not good.

There are 25,288 confirmed cases, according to WHO’s latest update.  That is 3,348 more confirmed cases than the prior update just three days earlier.  Most of these confirmed cases were people in the United States.  I suspect that is because our system of medicine is better and we do a better job than many countries of identifying cases.  So far, 139 people have died from having the 2009 H1N1, and it’s only been in existence about two months.  

Compare that to Bird Flu (H5N1), which has been around since 2003 and has been responsible for  262 deaths.  It won’t be long, maybe another few months, before H1N1 surpasses H5N1 in total deaths.  Of course, it is the Mortality Rates (MR) that are most important, and fortunately, the MR for H1N1 if far, far, far below that of H5N1. 

 To calculate the MR, you simply divide the deaths by the number of cases.  The MR for H5N1 (Bird Flu) is 60.5%, which means that 60% of all people who contract H5N1 die from it.  Conversely, the MR for 2009 H1N1 flu is only .55%, meaning that 55 die out of every 10,000 people sick with this new flu.

More about this on my next blog.  Stay tuned…..

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 10:47 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.