Severe Swine Flu Can Kill Young, Old Alike

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The median age of patients was 27, and about a third were children under the age of 18, the researchers reported.

"This implies that a good proportion of cases that were hospitalized were young adults, which is consistent with other findings," Louie said.

However, while infants had the highest rate of hospitalization, people over 50 were most likely to die once they ended up in the hospital.

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"We had 118 who died, and most of those were adults. Only eight children died," Louie said.

Eleven percent of patients hospitalized died, many of them from viral pneumonia.

More than two-thirds (68 percent) of the patients had other conditions, including obesity, that put them at higher risk for more severe illness due to the flu.

"If you look at the [H1N1] data worldwide, the elderly do tend to have a higher risk of death and that's probably associated with risk factors because as you get older, you tend to accumulate things you don't necessarily want, like heart disease and lung disease," Louie said.

"This is really along the lines of what we've been seeing," agreed Dr. Edward Walsh, a professor of medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center and chief of infectious diseases at Rochester General Hospital. "A relatively small number of older adults are infected but when they do get infected, they end up in the hospital at higher rates and they're dying at higher rates. Younger people are, by and large, a pretty sturdy group. The only difference is pregnant women [20 percent of hospitalized pregnant women needed intensive care] and they saw that as well."

Other experts also weren't surprised by the finding.

"The burden of disease is still in younger people, but don't forget that older people can still get sick and, when they do, it's likely to be more severe," said Dr. Scott Lillibridge, assistant dean at Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health in Houston and executive director of the National Center for Emergency Medical Preparedness and Response.

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