Swine flu’s shocking real toll: 265,000 more than anyone realised

The swine flu pandemic of 2009 was responsible for the deaths of thousands more people than originally thought, according to a new report published yesterday. A study conducted for The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal identified 284,500 victims around the world, more than 15 times the number of deaths confirmed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) three years ago. The original toll, a simple tabulation of laboratory-confirmed cases that was thought to be a gross underestimation, counted around 18,500 deaths. By extrapolating figures for poorer countries, scientists claim that the global outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus in 2009 could in fact be responsible for as many as 579,000 deaths. The Lancet study showed that the pandemic had a disproportionate effect on poorer countries. Some 51 per cent of swine-flu deaths occurred in Africa and South-east Asia. Study leader Dr Fatimah Dawood, of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said: “When you consider...