Swine flu causes huge rise in hospital admissions
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The number of days people spent in hospital beds with flu in 2009 was up 700 per cent on 2008, data showed today.
Figures from the NHS revealed 33,376 bed days were taken up by people with flu, compared to 4,163 in 2008. The rise was steepest in the final quarter of 2009, with the number of bed days rising to 20,744 between October and December compared to 1,585 in the same period in 2008.
This means the number of bed days was 13 times higher in 2009 than in 2008. The spread of swine flu in the winter is thought to have been behind the large rise in hospital admissions. Of the 20,774 flu admissions between October and December 2009, 5,008 were among under-16s, 6,253 among people aged 17 to 39 and 6,438 were among those aged 40 to 59. Swine flu hit younger age groups in 2009 than those normally affected by seasonal flu, which is reflected in the figures. Just 2,543 admissions were in people aged 60 to 79 and another 409 admissions were among people aged over 80.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments