EL PASO -- Health department statistics say no one in El Paso died from seasonal flu in the past three years but 10 people died from swine flu in just the past seven months.
The numbers are both startling and inaccurate.
Michael Hill, director of the city's Department of Public Health, said hundreds of deaths in El Paso during the past three years could have been linked to seasonal flu, but they were likely attributed to other causes, such as pneumonia. The condition often develops in people with the flu.
People also may have died from other chronic illnesses that were worsened by the flu.
Hill said public concern this year over H1N1 influenza, or swine flu, caused doctors, hospital staffs and other health officials to more closely monitor deaths that could be attributed to the flu. These were further scrutinized to determine whether seasonal flu or swine flu played a role.
"This year with all this attention, we're probably getting most of the flu deaths reported," he said.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are about 36,000 seasonal flu-related deaths in the United States each year.
Hill said when the figure is calculated to reflect El Paso's population, the annual number of local flu-related deaths should be much higher than reported.
"Ballpark estimate is 120 to 130 El Pasoans die directly or indirectly from influenza" each year, Hill said.
Many of these deaths occur in people under the care of doctors who list more
"There's no coordinated network of determining whether there is an influ-enza-associated death or not," Hill said. "Pathologists may suspect that and may include that as cause of death, but that information is not coordinated, is not compiled and is not integrated."
A new system of compiling and tracking the information is on the horizon with a collaboration of the health department, the county medical examiner's staff and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine.
"Just because there were none reported last year doesn't mean there were none," Hill said. "Since there hasn't been any surveillance in the past to really get good numbers, I don't know what the real number was last year. Was it zero or 120?"
The health department soon will hire a person responsible for educating medical providers about the need to report any deaths that might be tied to flu, whether they be swine flu or seasonal flu. This person will be housed at the medical examiner's office and will compile the information.
"If we can get better surveillance, we understand what the virus is doing and we can maybe counteract it better," said Dr. Paul Shrode, the county medical examiner. "The information is out there. We just need to collate it. We need better communication between all the health entities."
Experts from the medical school in pathology and infectious disease will assist in creating the system. They will include Dr. Gary Simpson, professor of medicine and infectious diseases in the departments of Medical Education and Internal Medicine.
He formerly was medical director of infectious diseases in the Public Health Division of New Mexico's Department of Health. Simpson helped establish a similar surveillance program there that focused on many infectious diseases.
"It has been profoundly valuable to public health," he said. "We're trying to see if we can extend that kind of experience to the county, and we're rapidly doing that."
Staff members of the health department, medical examiner's office and medical school meet weekly to discuss their progress toward establishing the program. Hill said it should be off the ground in December.
Simpson said it will help health officials identify trends of infectious diseases and allow them to develop ways to combat the illness, such as targeting groups for vaccination.
In addition, he said, he would not be surprised to learn if there were additional swine flu-related deaths beyond the 10 already reported.
"We haven't had a surveillance network up and going, so you can assume there may have been more deaths than we know about," he said.
These could have been in groups such as elderly people who were being treated for other health conditions when they contracted the flu.
Simpson said the collaboration will begin with a focus on influenza, but he would like to see it expand to include surveillance of other infectious disease-related deaths.
"Most of the country has been slow to embrace the importance of this kind of surveillance," he said.
Hill also wants to enhance its focus once the program is established.
"There are a lot of communicable diseases people die of that we don't know about because a physician finds something that's a valid cause of death and puts it down, and nobody is scrutinizing that," he said.
He anticipates the community will have a better picture of the true flu situation after several months of monitoring.
"A year from now when you come and ask me is it better or worse, I'll have something to compare it to," Hill said. "Right now there's not been that kind of surveillance."
Erica Molina Johnson may be reached at emolina@elpasotimes.com; 546-6132.
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