Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Three-quarters of people suffering from seasonal and pandemic flu but no symptoms

According to a new comparing study related to the burden and severity of seasonal and pandemic influenza in England over 5 years have found that 1 in 5 of the people were infected carrying both outbreaks of seasonal flu and the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. Surprisingly only 23 percent of these infections caused symptoms and 17 percent of the patients were actually ill enough to visit their doctor. The report could be further studied in scientific journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. The lead author Dr Andrew Hayward, from University College London, UK explains, “Reported cases of influenza represent the tip of a large clinical and subclinical iceberg that is mainly invisible to national surveillance systems that only record cases seeking medical attention. Most people don't go to the doctor when they have flu. Surveillance based on patients who consult greatly underestimates the number of community cases, which in turn can lead to overestimates of the proportion of cases who end up in hospital or die.”

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