Swine Flu Found No More Severe Than Seasonal Virus
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Children infected in last year’s swine flu pandemic were no more likely to be hospitalized with complications or get pneumonia than those who catch seasonal strains, according to a study that challenges previous reports.
About 1.5 percent of children with the H1N1 swine flu strain were hospitalized within 30 days, compared with 3.7 percent of those sick with a seasonal strain of H1N1 and 3.1 percent with an H3N2 virus, researchers said today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report compared outcomes in Wisconsin of 545 patients with swine flu versus 853 patients with seasonal strains beginning in 2007.