Children’s Swine Flu Deaths in U.S. Rise 20% to 114 (Update1)

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu killed 114 children in the U.S. since the outbreak surfaced in April, including 19 reported in the week from Oct. 18 to Oct. 24, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today on its Web site.

The death rate for children rose 20 percent from the 95 children killed by the virus, also known as H1N1 influenza, reported Oct. 23 by the CDC. Swine flu killed 530 people from Aug. 30 to Oct. 24 and accounted for 12,466 hospitalizations, the Atlanta-based agency said today on its Web site. The mortality data come from 28 states.

H1N1 flu targets young adults and children in greater numbers than other population groups, CDC says. People ages 6 months to 24 years are among the highest priority groups for getting the swine flu vaccine, according to the agency’s guidelines.

“This is very unsettling news for parents, particularly when coupled with the shortage of the vaccine,” said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University in New York and a professor of clinical public health and pediatrics at the university’s Mailman School of Public Health. “The situation is much more fluid and uncertain than the government expected and than the public is comfortable with.”

Vaccine Supply

The U.S. government had 24.8 million doses of swine flu vaccine for delivery as of yesterday, Anne Schuchat, head of the agency’s Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a press briefing. The CDC had said 29 million to 30 million doses of the vaccine would be available by the end of this month for states to send to local doctors, hospitals and clinics.

President Barack Obama declared swine flu a national emergency Oct. 24. Swine flu may have infected as many as 5.7 million people from April through July in an initial wave of the virus that swept across the U.S., researchers at the CDC and Harvard School of Public Health said yesterday.

Total pediatric deaths from influenza, including those not confirmed as H1N1, rose to 127 since April 26, CDC reported today on its Web site.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pat Wechsler in New York at pwechsler@bloomberg.net