Debra Wilson
HCS245
January 13, 2014
Windy Tanner
Disease in the News: Swine Flu
In November, 2013 an article appeared in PLOS Medicine, which is a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal that covers the whole spectrum of medical sciences. PLOS stands for Public Library of Science. This article has to do with swine flu deaths from the 2009 global outbreak and a new study by researchers in 26 different countries that point to the fact that the number of people who died in the 2009 swine flu outbreak was much higher than original World Health Organization official figures have shown. The new study presented in PLOS Medicine gives an estimate of world-wide swine flu deaths to have been about 203,000. This figure is roughly ten times higher than that given by the World Health Organization (WHO)-which based its total only on laboratory confirmed cases and deaths. Also, this study looked into the number of deaths by causes that became exacerbated or intensified by swine flu infection. When these deaths were taken into account, the total number of deaths due to infection by swine flu nearly doubled the 203,000 total. This was approximately more than twenty times higher than the WHO total-which, just to reiterate, was solely based on lab confirmed cases, etc...
When making comments on the study (which was funded by WHO to look into the details of the outbreak and to try to come up with a more accurate death toll), one of the main researchers and author, Lone Simonsen, a researcher and professor of the Department of Global Health at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services in the United States stated: “We found that the mortality burden of this pandemic fell most heavily on younger people (in the past it was usually older persons and the elderly that were most affected by flu viruses) and those living in certain parts of the Americas.” (Paddock, C, 2013) The certain parts of the
References: Paddock, C. (2013, November 28). "Swine flu deaths in 2009 much higher than previously estimated." Medical News Today. Retrieved from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/269461. Additional Reference http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu