Obesity and pregnancy associated with swine flu deaths
Reported September 01, 2009
Copenhagen, Denmark, August 30: A significant research done by a team from the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance has discovered that obesity could be one of the major contributing causes in critical swine flu cases.
The latest research has been done by analyzing the deaths from swine flu pandemic across the globe.
The research team took into account the characteristics of 574 deaths linked to the pandemic H1N1 influenza till the middle of July.
Underlying disease mostly present in swine flu deaths
As per the research findings, it was established that an underlying disease was present in at least half of all fatal cases. Not only this, the research team also discovered major differences in demographic patterns among those affected by the pandemic.
When an underlying disease was found to be the cause if a person died of swine flu, it was seen that in more than one in four cases the person suffered from a metabolic condition- diabetes and/or obesity.
Although the mortality patterns were more or less the same as those seen in seasonal flu, but two risk factors emerged out of all of them, i.e., pregnancy and obesity.
The team studied deaths of women, and found that 16 women, who represented 10 percent of all female deaths, were pregnant or had freshly delivered when they died. Half of the women had some other health-related problems.
Younger people more susceptible
Also, there has been a general view that the pandemic has mostly claimed the lives of people in the younger age group and this was found to be true.
“Compared to younger age groups, the elderly seem to be protected from infection to some extent, perhaps due to previous exposure to strains akin to influenza A (H1N1) v virus,” the team was quoted as saying.
The research team found that the average age of those who have died was 37. People in the age group of 20 to 49 years comprised of more than half of all deaths. Overall, 12 percent of deaths were discovered in people above 60 years of age.
Obesity as a risk-factor in swine flu deaths could add another dimension to the research currently being done by epidemiologists on swine flu.
But the team has said that elaborate studies need to be done before it is thoroughly established that there is a connection between obesity, acute influenza and mortality.
Pandemic likely to get worse
As per a new update issued by the Health Protection Agency (HPA), “In the last seven days, cases reported globally have increased by eight percent and the number of deaths by 21 percent.”
But the good news by HPA is that flu cases have gone down in England now. However, as the autumn is arriving, there is a fear that the infection will gain momentum again.
The French team warned, “The pandemic is far from over, and deaths will unfortunately continue to occur. As in previous pandemics, available data show that age groups are not equally affected.”
The latest study findings have been published in the medical journal Eurosurveillance.
Source : themedguru.com