Bird flu tends to kill younger people, mirroring the pattern of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, and the risk of the virus causing a worldwide outbreak in humans remains high, a World Health Organization says.
Bird flu tends to kill younger people, which makes it similar in the pattern to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
The risk of the virus causing a worldwide outbreak in humans remains high, a World Health Organization study said.
The median age of confirmed cases of the H5N1 avian flu (bird flu) strain was 20 years, the WHO said in a report published today in the Weekly Epidemiological Record.
The death rate among bird flu patients aged 10 to 19 years was 73 percent, the highest of any age group, it said. Overall, the fatality rate was 56 percent.
"The differences in the age-related case-fatality distribution among H5N1 cases are reminiscent of those observed during previous influenza pandemics, particularly in 1918, where case-fatality rates were higher among young adults," the study said.
Since 2003, bird flu virus H5N1 is known to have infected at least 228 people, mainly in Asia, killing 130 of them, according to the Geneva-based WHO.
Seasonal influenza kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people each year. Most fatalities occur in people over 65, according to the WHO.
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