Swine flu hit California first and fast back in April. So researchers began looking at who was affected and just how sick they became.
"We actually found that over 30 percent of the patients who were admitted and hospitalized required intensive care and mechanical ventilation and over 10 percent died," said Dr. Janice K. Louie, Medical Officer at California Department of Public Health.
Sixteen-year-old Tiffany Lee was part of that 30 percent. she's been in the hospital for more than three months. most of that time in intensive care on a ventilator and not able to breathe on her own.
"Well it definitely was a surprise because I didn't expect to get that sick," she said.
Tiffany's fever climbed to 109 degrees. Her liver and her kidneys failed.
"She got really ill really quickly and the severity of her sickness just started escalating," said her dad, Steve.
Dr. Louie and her colleagues looked at more than 1,000 patients who were hospitalized or died with swine flu in California from April to August of this year.
"One of the most important messages of this study is that H1N1 infections can be a severe illness even if you don't necessarily have the risk factors for severe complications. Even healthy people can get sick and hospitalized. And another interesting fact we found, that there is a perception that the elderly are protected and have some pre-existing immunity when in fact in our study, if the elderly were admitted and severely ill they often ended up dying," she said.
The study also reports that infants under six months have a higher risk of hospitalization and that rapid tests that come back negative aren't always reliable.
The new study is not likely to change CDC recommendations regarding vaccines since the overwhelming number of swine flu cases have been in young people.
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