STUDY: SWINE FLU EPIDEMIC NOT AS DEADLY AS THOUGHT

USA Today - A team of researchers from the USA and Britain dramatically scaled back estimates of the severity of the swine flu epidemic.

The analysis suggests that the death rate from the current wave of H1N1 flu cases probably will fall in a range that extends from far lower to slightly higher than the estimate of 36,000 deaths caused by seasonal flu in a typical year. . .

At the low end, the estimates suggest that for every 10% of the population to develop flu symptoms, there will be 1,500 to 2,700 deaths, 6,600 to 11,000 people in intensive care, and 36,000 to 78,000 hospitalizations. At the high end, for the same percentage of the population, swine flu could cause 7,800 to 29,000 deaths, 40,000 to 140,000 people needing intensive care, and 250,000 to 790,000 hospitalizations.

The calculations represent a marked reduction from an August report by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. That report proposed a "plausible" death toll that could fall anywhere between 30,000 and 90,000. Lipsitch, who worked on the August report, says the earlier estimate was based on "limited data" because the researchers began their work not long after the virus first surfaced in April, when little was known about the shape of the epidemic to come. . .

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its own estimate of the scope of the epidemic. The agency says at least 22 million Americans have gotten the flu since April. About 3,900 have died, including about 540 children.