How Many People Died From The Flu In 2012 – Worldwide, seasonal flu kills an average of 400,000 people each year from respiratory illnesses. During major flu pandemics, when flu strains have evolved significantly, the death toll has been even higher.
But the risk of death from the flu has decreased significantly over time thanks to improvements in sanitation, health care, and vaccination.
How Many People Died From The Flu In 2012
People born in 1940 had about a third the risk of dying from the flu than those born in 1900 — even when they reached the same age. This decline has continued, with those born in 1980 having half the risk of those born in 1940.
Spanish Flu Vs. Coronavirus: The Pandemics Have Similarities, But We Can Learn From Past Lessons
Influenza continues to be a major burden worldwide due to aging populations and lack of access to health care and sanitation in many countries.
In this article, we take a closer look at these developments: how many people die from seasonal flu and how this has changed over time.
We will also look at what factors increase the risk of death from the flu and understand why in some years the flu has led to major pandemics that have caused millions of deaths. This knowledge can inform us about the risk of flu in the future.
The Widespread Flu Has Killed 30 Children
Although influenza is a well-studied disease, estimating the number of deaths from influenza can be difficult for several reasons.1
One problem is that the symptoms of the flu resemble other infections, such as respiratory syncytial virus and rhinovirus. In many countries, only a small proportion of patients with “flu-like illness” are tested to confirm whether they have been infected with the virus.2 This means that we are missing many – or in some countries, most – infections.
Another problem is that the flu can cause death in a variety of indirect ways. It can lead to death from respiratory complications, such as pneumonia, but also from cardiovascular complications, such as heart attacks and strokes, or other serious infections. This is especially true for the elderly and people with chronic health problems.3 Without counting these deaths, we would underestimate the number of deaths from influenza.
How America Struggled To Bury The Dead During The 1918 Flu Pandemic
To overcome this, researchers estimate the severity of the flu using other methods. They can estimate the amount
Of deaths that occur during influenza seasons and use routine surveillance data and mortality records to estimate how many of these are due to influenza.
Annual mortality from seasonal influenza was estimated by the Global Pandemic Mortality Project II using data from 2002-2011. They estimated that seasonal influenza caused between 294,000 and 518,000 deaths worldwide each year during this period.4
Flu And Pneumonia Is Now Killing Six Times As Many People As Coronavirus As Deaths At Lowest Since Lockdown
These estimates focus on deaths in people with respiratory illnesses. This means they miss some flu deaths because some people can die from cardiovascular complications of the flu without respiratory illness.5
On the map, you can see the estimated number of deaths from influenza per 100,000 people, among people over the age of 65.
In Europe, the death rate from influenza was 30.8 per 100,000 each year among people over 65 years of age. This is more than three times the risk of road traffic accidents, which kill 9 people per 100,000, in the same age group.6
How Many People Die From The Flu?
In low-income countries, these estimates are less certain because of lower levels of influenza testing and limited mortality rates.
But influenza is considered more deadly in countries in South America, Africa and South Asia than in Europe and North America. For example, Indonesia has more than twice as many dead as Canada. These disparities are at least partly due to poverty, poorer health, and less access to health care.
We do not have accurate long-term estimates of influenza mortality in most countries. But the researchers made weekly estimates of flu deaths over long periods in the United States. This shows us how current rates compare to past rates. You can see this data in the chart.7
The Flu Shot: Its History And Common Misconceptions
The number of deaths from the flu has been roughly stable in the United States over the past 65 years. You can see this in the top bar of the graph.
However, much of this is due to the fact that the population is growing and aging.
Age groups, flu mortality is falling. You can see this in the bottom panel, which takes into account changes in the size and age structure of the population.
It’s A Good Time To Get Your Flu Vaccine
Decreased over time. But as the population grows and ages, the total number of deaths remains stable.
Influenza mortality has declined over several generations. We know this from historical data from the United States used to estimate “cohort effects.” This tells us whether people born recently have a lower risk of death given their young age.
Since 1900, there has been a long-term decline in the risk of death from influenza9. There are several reasons for this.
Calm, Cool, Courageous: Nursing And The 1918 Influenza Pandemic • Bates Center • Penn Nursing
One is that in the early 1900s, there were major urban sanitation projects throughout the United States.10 During the twentieth century, there were also improvements in the health care of newborns and an increase in childhood vaccinations. All of these factors had benefits that persisted with age: they protected people from developing comorbidities that increased the risk of dying from the flu.
The number of flu vaccinations has also increased. Influenza vaccines were first developed in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1952, the World Health Organization established a system to monitor which strains of influenza were circulating around the world. This has helped researchers develop new vaccines each year that match these strains.11 Over the next decade, flu vaccination rates among older adults began to rise.12
Even when they reached the same age, people born in 1940 had about a third the risk of dying from the flu than those born in 1900. This decline continued, and for those born in 1980 the risk was half that of those born in 1940.13
Flu Season 2020 21
Age is the main risk factor for death from the flu. As you can see from the map, infants and the elderly tend to have a much higher risk of dying from various respiratory diseases, including the flu, compared to younger people. For example, 60-year-olds are ten times more likely to die from the flu than 20-year-olds.14
Once a person reaches their twenties, the risk of dying from the flu increases exponentially. This form results from the risk of death from all causes.15
The risk of dying from the flu also depends on other factors, such as the quality of health care, the strain of flu, and whether a person has received a flu vaccine.16
Disease Burden Of Flu
Each year, flu vaccines change according to the flu strains expected to dominate during the winter. When there is a mismatch between vaccine strains and circulating flu strains, vaccines tend to be less effective and flu seasons tend to be more severe.17
Some seasons are much more serious than the regular seasonal flu. This usually happens when new strains of flu emerge and cause flu pandemics.
Influenza viruses circulating in the population tend to mutate over time through a process called “antigenic drift.” This gives them the ability to evade human immunity.
How Lethal Is Covid 19 Compared To Cancer, Flu And Other Death Causes?
But flu viruses can also evolve with large and sudden changes. This happens in a process called “antigenic shift,” where parts of different strains combine with each other. These new combinations can be more infectious and deadly than previous strains, leading to deadlier pandemics.
For example, the Spanish flu resulted from the combination of a human flu and another animal flu to form a new H1N1 flu virus. As you can see on the map, this caused the largest influenza pandemic in history: a study by Spreeuwenberg et al. (2018) estimates that the Spanish flu killed about 17.4 million people. Other estimates are even higher: Johnson and Muller (2002) estimate that the Spanish flu killed between 50 and 100 million people.18
The number of deaths far exceeds the number of people who die from flu in a typical year—30 to 340 times more than the estimated 294,000 to 518,000 deaths caused by seasonal flu each year, even though the world population was much smaller than .19
What’s Driving The Egg Price Increase? Blame Inflation — And The Bird Flu.
Deaths from the Spanish flu have increased significantly among young adults compared to previous seasons. Research shows that this is because they lacked immunity to H1 flu viruses because they were exposed to different flu strains as children. In contrast, older generations were exposed to similar H1 influenza viruses decades before the pandemic began, giving them some protection against the pandemic H1N1 strain.20
Seasonal influenza causes an average of 400,000 respiratory deaths each year. But this burden is much lower than in the past, thanks to improvements in sanitation, health care and vaccination.
Influenza also remains a major burden worldwide for two important reasons. One is that many people around the world still do not have access to health care and have low rates of influenza vaccination, which increases the risk of death.
Why Healthy People Need Flu Shots, Too
Another reason is that the population of many countries is rapidly aging. In low-income countries, influenza may become a greater burden as they face an aging population
How many people died during the spanish flu, how many people died from spanish flu, how many people died from the flu in 1918, how many people died spanish flu, how many people died from swine flu, how many people died from the flu, people died from flu, how many people have died from flu, how many people died from flu shot, how many people died from the flu in 2014, how many people died in the spanish flu, how many people died in 2012