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Throughout much of this summer, we’ve talked about the possibility of a high morbidity-low mortality pandemic. One that would cause a lot of sickness – and place enormous stresses on the medical system – but one that would cause relatively few deaths.
At least in societies that can offer antivirals, antibiotics, and hospital care if needed.
And in fact, that is what we seem to be seeing.
Since this virus appears to be sparing older people – who are generally at the greatest risk of death from influenza – we are seeing fewer overall deaths from Swine flu than from normal influenza.
Of course, the rub here is that the deaths we are seeing are coming from a younger age group. And a significant number of young adults and children have required serious medical intervention.
Jason Gale, who has done some terrific reporting over the years on pandemic influenza, brings us details of how this novel H1N1 virus has overwhelmed the ICUs in New Zealand and Australia and placed severe demands on staff, and resources.
While perhaps only 1 person in 200 who gets the virus requires hospitalization, those that do often require heroic measures to keep them alive.
Included are comments by Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of CIDRAP, and interviews with a number of doctors on the front lines. They report the demand for ventilators and ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) units has been unprecedented over the past few months.
This report from Bloomberg News.
Swine Flu Pandemic Paradox Kills Few, Overwhelms Hospital ICUs
By Jason Gale
Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu filled up Geoff Shaw’s intensive care unit in Christchurch, New Zealand, last month, forcing some surgeries to be canceled as the hospital struggled to cope. As winter moves to the Northern Hemisphere, health officials from Chicago to London brace for a similar overload.
“We have run out of bed space, we have run out of nurses,” Shaw, 47, said after working in the ICU and being on- call for 185 hours over 11 days. “There will be people who die because they were denied access to other treatments.”
Health officials call it the swine flu paradox. As the new H1N1 strain spreads, the majority of patients recover within days and the number of deaths is a fraction of the seasonal flu toll. Those statistics mask an alarming reality: the pandemic has strained intensive care units and a resurgence of the virus in the fall could bring a public health disaster, experts say.
“We have largely been fortunate,” said Simon Towler, an intensive care specialist at the Royal Perth Hospital and Western Australia’s chief medical officer. “If we had a severe flu of a different type we would be in massive trouble. The systems really don’t have the capacity to cope with a surge.”
Last weekend, a quarter of Western Australia’s 105 adult intensive care beds were occupied by swine flu patients who needed ventilators to breathe, according to Towler.
The experience in Australia and New Zealand offers clues about what North America, Europe and Japan may see when winter moves in.
