Answers > How Many People Died From the 1918 Influenza and the H1N1 Swine Flu of Today?

broshaft@hotmail.com December 2, 2010 at 4:03 pm

The 1918 Spanish Flu killed 50 million-75 million people, 99% of those who died were under 65 years of age, although half of those who died were 50-65 or under the age of 5, the other half were 20-40 years of age. Global mortality rate(those who died once infected) was between 10-20%

As of July 4th, 2009 the CDC and WHO have said there were 94,512 confirmed cases in 122 countries and among those there were 429 deaths associated with H1N1. They have not been keeping an accurate count since July 4th so any data since then is purely an estimate. Hospital cases world wide or (roughly 1/3 of those infected, representing cases that were in need of hospitalization) as of August 28th, 2009 is 287,537 infected, 3087 deaths or a 1.06% mortality rate if you need to be hospitalized.

If we do the math on overall confirmed cases(inside and outside of hospitals) 429 divided by 94512 we come up with the answer .45% or 9 people out of every 2000 have died from the virus. Of those 429 deaths only a handful were healthy individuals. 90% were the elderly, pregnant women, people with asthma, diabetes or suppressed immune systems and children under the age of 5. So if you are a healthy person that doesn’t fall in any of these category’s your risk of death is roughly .04% or 4 in 10000 chance, the same chance you’d have of dying from complications associated with any seasonal flu bug as a healthy person.

The same is true with the modern stat related to hospital visits, if we take into consideration how many have not gone to see a doctor, the estimated overall deaths to infection percentage is roughly 5000 deaths(about 2000 deaths thought to be related to H1N1 but not certain due to time of death and death outside of hospital) and 1,000,000 infected or .5% mortality rate.

I hope this comprehensive answer helps you complete your assignment and answers your questions about the virus. Check the website links under my sources if you wish for my information related to the virus.