Pneumonia and Flu for rise seen in deaths

Deaths from pneumonia and influenza across the country rose sharply in the weekly flu report released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but a spokesman for the agency called it merely “a blip we’re checking out.” It was premature to conclude that any third wave of swine flu was emerging, said the spokesman, Thomas Skinner. Underscoring his point, all the other data in the weekly C.D.C. report, along with New York City hospital admission records and visits to campus health centers tracked by the American College Health Association, found that flu activity was still declining across the country, so the rise in deaths was a mystery. The weekly report showed that 8.3 percent of all deaths in 122 cities were caused by pneumonia or flu, while the normal midwinter level is about 7.7 percent. That 8.3 percent was slightly higher than it was even in late November, when the flu’s fall wave peaked, although the normal level for late fall is about 6 percent. Lyn Finelli, the disease centers’ chief flu epidemiologist, said most of the deaths were from pneumonia and were among the elderly. It was possible, she said, that some cities had delayed reporting deaths over the holidays, which would make later data look artificially high. No states reported widespread flu activity. What flu exists is clustered in the Southeast, as it was when the second wave began last fall. Nearly all the samples tested have been swine flu, which appears to be crowding out seasonal strains this year. In the panic over swine flu last fall, millions more Americans than usual got seasonal flu shots.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/health/30flu.html