June 26, 2009, 1 p.m. ET
Excerpts:
In terms of the virologic testing that's being done, the new H1N1 virus is now making up more than 99% of all the typed isolates we're testing here in the U.S. with our collaborating laboratories, so virtually all the of the influenza that's circulating that's getting a diagnosis is this new strain right now here in our summer months. We're also tracking milder illness, outpatient visits for what we call influenza-like ill this and this is now returning below the national baseline but in -- at the national level, but two of our ten regions of the country are still above what we think of as a baseline for this time of year. Those two regions are New England and the New Jersey/New York area, regions 1 and 2, where they're still seeing more influenza-like illness than you would expect to see at this time of year. Those regional numbers can mask outbreaks of clusters at smaller geographic areas and we know some communities are still coping with outbreaks of this disease. Influenza-like illness increase during week 24 in 6 of the 10 regions compared to week 23. That's unusual. Usually this time of year, things would be going down instead of going up.
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We continue to say there most of the impact of this new virus is affecting younger people compared with what we see with the seasonal flu when, of course, seniors, people over 65, are so greatly affected. We're seeing high rates of illness among people under 50. The highest rates are in those under 25. When we look at hospitalized cases, nearly 80% of people who have been hospitalized in the U.S. and reported to us have been under 50. The median age of hospitalized cases is 19 years old. When we look at the most severe outcomes, the people who have died, the age is a bit older. The median age of those who have died is 37, still quite young for anyone to be dying of an infectious disease, but a bit older than the hospitalizations and the average cases.
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We do expect that this new strain is going to continue to spread in the Southern Hemisphere and intensify over the weeks ahead and we are continuing to watch this closely. We'll be watching for changes in the virus. We have not seen any changes in the virus that are important as of this point. We'll also be watching for changes in disease patterns. We've mentioned that people over 65 don't seem to be getting this illness or getting it in very great numbers here in the U.S. We'll be watching to see whether older people start to get this virus in the Southern Hemisphere as the flu season progresses. Those kinds of concerns have not shown up yet but we're continuing to watch. We'll also be continuing to watch the virus to see if it develops resistance to the oseltamivir type of drugs. We haven't seen that yet but it's the kind of thing we'll continue to look for.
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Helen Branswell: Thank you very much. I was hoping I could ask couple of questions if I could. The first one is, did the CDC have an estimate as this point of how many people who die have underlying conditions? We had earlier heard maybe as many as half of the people who were dying were previously healthy, but increasingly, it seems like all of the death notices, almost all of the death notices have reference to underlying conditions. And the second question I wanted to ask is are you doing any sero surveys in parts of the U.S. to try to get a better handle on how many people have been infected in this wave?
Anne Schuchat: Yes, thank you. The vast majority of the fatalities that we hear of or that are officially reported to us do occur in people with underlying conditions. It's not 100%. It's more on the on order of three-fourths of them at this point. We're continuing to track that and get additional information. We're up to 127 deaths have been reported to us, but we don't have that underlying condition information yet on all of them
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