Despite all the dire warnings of a death toll of genocidal proportions, the swine flu (H1N1) virus is relatively harmless, new research has discovered. Even the annual flu virus poses a bigger threat to our health. Only 1 in 600 of us who catch swine flu will need hospital care, and just a tiny fraction of those will die from the virus, the UK Medical Research Council and the Harvard School of Public Health have revealed in a new study. They estimate that swine flu will have a lower death toll than even the seasonal flu virus, which usually claims around 36,000 lives each year in the USA.
But while seasonal flu is a bigger threat to the elderly, swine flu seems to have a bigger impact on children aged up to four years, and among adults aged between 18 and 64.
(Source: PLoS Medicine, 2009; 6: e10000207).