"Every year in the US, between five to 20 percent of us are infected with the old-fashioned flu; 200,000 of us end up in the hospital; and around 36,000 of us die. Flu victims are typically the very young, the very old and the very immune-suppressed or ill.
"During the worst week of the 2007-2008 season, the regular flu had a mortality rate of about nine percent," according to a blog by Amanda Ripley, author of The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why. By comparison, Ripley writes, one study of swine flu outbreaks showed a fatality rate around 14 percent. The mortality rate of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 was 2.5 percent, according to The Daily Telegraph, while the mortality rate of the 1957 and 1968 pandemics was 0.5 percent. (The dreaded Ebola virus, for comparison, has a mortality rate that can reach 90 percent). Obviously, the flu isn't a death sentence - far from it - but the body count escalates in a pandemic because so many millions are infected. So, what goes wrong when younger, healthier people die from the flu? The key is something called the "cytokine storm," according to Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of CIDRAP. In a fascinating November 2005 online interview with The Washington Post, Osterholm explained: "A cytokine storm is the release of a chemical in the body that stimulates the human immune system to respond to the virus infection. In these serious illnesses and deaths, it's actually been an over vigorous immune response elicited by this infection that result in the organ damage and ultimately the death of the individual. Ironically this means that those with the strongest immune systems may be at highest risk for a serious outcome if infected with the (bird flu) H5N1 virus. At the same time, it is surely possible that those with weakened or immature immune systems, such as the very young or very old, and those with underlying immune conditions, may experience serious illness associated with the annual influenza illness, which often involves damage to the respiratory tract and subsequent secondary bacterial infection."" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-sherwood/thinking-the-unthinkable_b_192055.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:296339 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
