Nov 3, 2009 5:09 pm US/Eastern
HealthWatch: Swine Flu Demographic
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
New research shows H1N1 is now targeting people of every age, not just the young.
Swine flu hit California first and fast. Their Department of Public Health began looking at who was affected and just how sick they became.
"We actually found that over 30-percent of the patients who were admitted and hospitalized required intensive care and mechanical ventilation and over 10-percent died," said Dr. Janice K. Louie of the California Department of Public Health.
Tiffany Lee, 16, was part of that 30-percent. On the mend now, she's been in the hospital for more than three months. Most of that time she spent in intensive care on a ventilator and unable to breathe on her own.
"Well it definitely was a surprise because I didn't expect to get that sick," Lee said.
Dr. Arup Roy-Burman treated Tiffany for a myriad of symptoms, including a 109 degree fever, liver and kidney failure.
Steve Adams, Tiffany's father, said, "she got really ill really quickly and the severity of her sickness just started escalating."
Dr. Janice Louie led research looking at 1,088 patients who were hospitalized or died with H1N1 from April to August of this year.
The study is featured this week in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.
They found that H1N1 infections can be life threatening even if you don't necessarily have the risk factors for severe complications.
Even healthy people can end up hospitalized.
"And another interesting fact, we found that there is a perception that the elderly are protected and have some pre-existing immunity when in fact in our study, if the elderly were admitted and severely ill they often ended up dying," Louie said.
As for Tiffany, she is hoping to be home for the holidays.
The study also reports that infants under six months had a higher risk of hospitalization and that rapid tests used by doctors to quickly diagnose the seasonal flu weren't as reliable in detecting the H1N1.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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