WKRN, Nashville, Tennessee News, Weather, and Sports |Survey: Death more likely in older H1N1 patients

Survey: Death more likely in older H1N1 patients

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Doctors have long said that older Americans are safer from the H1N1 flu virus than other groups because they likely have built up immunity to fight the flu, but a recent survey suggests those who do get it, stand a better chance of dying from it.

The survey, from California, is printed in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.

In the survey, researchers monitored 1,088 H1N1 patients who were admitted to the hospital between April and August of this year.

Of those, 118 patients died, eight were children and nearly 20% were adults over 50.

The largest percentages of hospitalizations were for children and young people.

The median age of those hospitalized is 27 years old.

Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a researcher at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said, "People over 65 are clearly getting infected."

She said that she knows from the seasonal flu, which comes around every year, that when older people do get infected, they have more trouble than younger people.

"Their hearts don't work as well, their lungs don't work as well, and when they are sick, sick with the flu, there is a much greater risk that they'll be hospitalized or even die," Dr. Edwards said.

Edwards does not know how many patients at Vanderbilt have been adults over 50 but there have been adults admitted to the intensive care unit.

She said people over 60 should guard against other health problems that would make either flu more deadly.

"Elderly people need to get the pneumonia vaccine because that will protect against the bacterial complications of influenza," she said.

Doctors say more than two-thirds of the California H1N1 patients who died had underlying health issues, and more than half of the victims were obese.

Read more about the H1N1 virus at CDC.gov and visit WKRN.COM's special H11N section.