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Two die, 33 hospitalized with H1N1 in past week

By Crawford Kilian October 20, 2009 10:30 am 2 comments

Two more British Columbians died of H1N1 influenza in the last week, according to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. Thirty-three persons were hospitalized with the disease, a 42 percent increase in one week over the previous total from last spring to October 13.

According to the B.C. CDC surveillance update dated October 19, both deaths were reported by the Fraser Health Authority.

Twelve new hospitalizations were reported by Vancouver Coastal Health, 13 by Fraser Health, 6 by Interior Health, and 2 by Vancouver Island Health. Only Northern Health had no new hospitalizations.

Total H1N1 deaths in B.C. are now 9, and total hospitalizations are 111. Over 600 lab-confirmed cases were reported for the week ending October 8, but that fell to about 100 in the following week. Very few confirmed cases have required hospitalization.

Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.

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2 Comments:

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  • Ramona777

    2 years ago

    Thanks for the update, but what about other deaths?

    I appreciate knowing the status of H1N1 but why not broaden this exercise? Why not report how many people have died this week as as result of a drunk or speeding driver? How about some numbers on how many people with cancer have died or HIV-AIDS deaths? What about how many deaths of street people? Come to think of it, how many people have died of seasonal flu last week?
    My point is, where do you draw the line between scaring the gullible and informing them. Maybe if we knew that "X" amount of people died each week because a drunk driver killed them we'd think twice before breaking the law.

  • mwatkins

    2 years ago

    Pay attention

    Almost all flu cases coming in these days are 2009 A/H1N1. That has been released in the updates each week.

    Secondly - you have time - look up last year's influenza surveillance reports and you'll find that there is an unusually high death rate being reported with this year's H1N1 strain. In fact there were not any influenza related deaths reported in the U.S. by the CDC until January 2009 (two children died in week 2).

    I could find no reference to patient deaths on the Canadian FluWatch site for the entire summer/fall 2008 season.

    This year we've already had 72, and the season is just ramping up now.

    That, to me, is newsworthy. Don't you agree?

    http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/fluwatch/08-09/w34_09/index-eng.php#t1

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