Youth Mortality: A Key Characteristic In Pandemics
Submitted by admin on Friday, June 26 2009One Comment
Youth mortality is one of five “signature features” of influenza pandemics and according to the authors of a policy paper reprinted in the June 2009 issue of NEJM, it is the “most striking characteristic of the 20th century pandemics.”
The 5 signature features are:
- a shift in the virus subtype
- shifts of the highest death rates to younger populations
- successive pandemic waves, higher transmissibility than that of seasonal influenza
- differences in impact in different geographic regions
It is the second feature that has been the pronounced blip on the radar screen – young people who have developed no immunity to cousins of the virus and therefore are most prone to developing serious, life-threatening illnesses as a result of exposure to H1N1.
And that is why reading about the deaths of young people with today’s H1N1 virus is so troubling. The 1918 Great Flu Pandemic killed up to 50 million people world-wide and shared these 5 characteristics with the 1918 pandemic.
Heightened awareness about non-medical interventions, specifically “social distancing” would considerably decrease transmission. We need to remain vigilant about prevention and limit our contacts to others when we are sick with any flu-like illness…
The current H1N1 virus has met all five characteristics of the 3 devastating influenza pandemics of the 20th century: 1918-1919, 1957-1963, and the 1968-1970 pandemics.
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