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Some related articles : Elderly Linked to a Marked Rise in Flu Deaths (January 8, 2003)
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Yahoo
News, January 8, 2003 By
LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer
CHICAGO
- Influenza has surpassed AIDS as a lethal killer and contributes to an average 36,000 annual
U.S. deaths, largely because of a vulnerable aging population for whom the
vaccine is often ineffective, government research shows.
The
U.S. flu-related death toll surged fourfold from 16,263 in 1976-77 to
64,684 in 1998-99, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical
Association. Those numbers average out to 16,000 more deaths yearly than
the previous estimate of 20,000. Health
and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said the news "that influenza may
be taking an even larger toll than we have realized" underscores the
importance of flu shots, especially for older people. Drug
breakthroughs in the mid-1990s helped reduce U.S. AIDS deaths from 51,000
in 1995 to about 15,000 in 2001. But the main weapon doctors have against
flu — a vaccine — has proven disappointingly ineffective in the most
susceptible population: people 65 and older. Older
people are more prone to flu complications yet only about 65 percent of
them get vaccinated. The annual shots do not protect aging immune systems
as well as they do younger ones. Annual
flu shots have been recommended for people 65 and older since the 1960s
and for those 50 and older since 2000. The
flu death toll pales in comparison to that of the worldwide influenza
epidemic of 1918, which killed more than 20 million people, including
500,000 Americans. But
the new numbers frustrate public health experts who had hoped the
development of flu vaccine about 40 years ago would have had a greater
effect. Vaccination
rates are also dismal — about 30 percent — for another target group,
people with high-risk conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, said
Dr. Keiji Fukuda, a CDC epidemiologist. Thompson
noted that flu shots are free under Medicare and said new federal rules
should help increase vaccination rates by allowing hospitalized Medicare
patients to get flu shots without a doctor's order. For
the study, researchers developed a new statistical model to create a more
accurate estimate of flu deaths using national mortality and virus
surveillance data. The
new model shows that a more lethal virus strain has hit in recent years,
contributing to the increase in deaths. But
between 1976 and 1999, the number of U.S. adults 85 and older doubled. And
the researchers found that this age group was 16 times more likely to die
of flu-related causes than people ages 65 to 69. Flu
can progress to pneumonia and other life-threatening lung infections and
can weaken elderly people, making them more vulnerable to other serious
ailments, such as heart disease. The
study also found that older people are disproportionately affected by
another respiratory virus previously thought to be more common in
children. The
researchers estimate there are 11,000 deaths annually from respiratory
syncytial virus, which can cause severe cold-like symptoms and pneumonia. Their
study confirmed that RSV is the most common cause of viral death in
children under 5. But to researchers' surprise, the study found that 78
percent of RSV deaths occur in people 65 and older. "We've
known for some time that influenza and RSV have a profound impact on
public health," said CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding.
"However, these data indicate that the magnitude of the problem is
larger than we once thought." Vaccines
against RSV are being developed. ___
On
the Net: JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org
CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov
Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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