Health
Related: About this forum2009 swine flu outbreak was 15 times deadlier: study
euters) - The swine flu pandemic of 2009 killed an estimated 284,500 people, some 15 times the number confirmed by laboratory tests at the time, according to a new study by an international group of scientists.
The study, published on Tuesday in the London-based journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, said the toll might have been even higher - as many as 579,000 people.
The original count, compiled by the World Health Organization, put the number at 18,500.
Those were only the deaths confirmed by lab testing, which the WHO itself warned was a gross underestimate because the deaths of people without access to the health system go uncounted, and because the virus is not always detectable after a victim dies.
The new study also shows the pandemic's impact varied widely by region, with 51 percent of swine flu deaths occurring in Africa and southeast Asia, which account for only 38 percent of the world's population.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/26/us-swineflu-idUSBRE85O1DF20120626
My company was the first to put a H1N1 vaccine out and I STILL maintain that the deaths in this country were contained by the fact that the govt distrubed the vaccine in a fairly timely manner.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)MineralMan
(146,359 posts)At the time, I remember thinking that if they were pushing so hard for it, there must be a good reason, so I got my shot. I'm glad I did.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Lisa D
(1,532 posts)and others is sooo important. We need to find away to make these vaccines ready available world-wide.
LeftishBrit
(41,219 posts)I think so often when health statistics are examined, people from developing countries are ignored, because it's harder to gather data, and anyway poor people, who can't afford medications, don't count. . That is the real scandal about vaccination: that too many people in the world don't have access to it.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Clearly this study is a plot by Big Pharma and WHO to con us into more jabs!