CDC Announces Recent Flu Season Numbers
- By BSTQ Staff
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released the nation’s numbers for the 2013-2014 influenza season, which show Americans were hit particularly hard due to the return of the H1N1 virus that caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
The flu season peaked in late December and January, and the highest death rate from flu and pneumonia was 8.7 percent of all reported deaths at the end of January. Similar to 2009, the flu season hit young and middle-aged adults fairly hard, but flu also killed at least 96 children and many elderly people as well. “The highest hospitalization rates were among adults 65 years or older, which is consistent with previous influenza seasons,” said a team from CDC that writes in the agency’s weekly report on death and disease. But, “hospitalization rates among those aged 50 to 64 years were significantly higher than in all years since the 2009 pandemic.”
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, the available vaccines in the 2013-2014 season matched the circulating flu viruses well. “Influenza A viruses predominated until late March, and influenza B viruses became the most commonly identified viruses nationally during the week ending March 29,” the report says. While this is a national report, CDC figures come from 30 states, New York City and Chicago, so they are not complete numbers for the nation.
