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New flu epidemic could slay 81 million: Study

Recent study reveals that if the fatal Spanish flu of 1918 would reiterate then it would engulf as many as 81 million people globally.

By applying historical death rates to modern population data, the researchers premeditated a death toll of about 51 million to 81 million, with a median estimate of 62 million.

Although the 1918 flu outbreak swallowed up at least 40 million people globally but in 1957 and 1968, the killings were about 2 million to 1 million respectively.

The investigators evaluated death rates for the duration of pandemic to average death rates before and after. The figure is directly proportional to death rates, known as excess mortality. They then related the excess mortality data to global population data from 2004.

If their median comes out to be nearly 62 million flu deaths per year then the total number of deaths from all causes worldwide would become more than double, jumping by 114 percent.

A startling revelation came in the study, which states that, how different countries would be affected by a pandemic. It estimated that 96% of the deaths would occur in the developing countries.

Thus they concluded that ‘it’s not just the genetic makeup of the virus that will cause deaths, but that there are a lot of other things that intervene’. For instance, population density, nutrition and immune status could all play vital roles.

It was further postulated that this time, if the number of deaths are going to be less, even then ‘the world will be severely stressed.’

Worldwide community has boosted its pandemic preparedness plans when the threat rose with the circulation of the H5N1 bird flu virus.

Although it is acceptable that medical technology has advanced considerably and now there are antidotes for nearly all maladies, yet we should not ignore that these advances are far from the grasp of poor countries.

Another question is impact of the flu pandemic that would have on those infected with HIV. Seasonal influenza exacts a heavy toll on those with weakened immune systems. So it may hawk upon them even more severely.

Thus, it has been predicted that the next pandemic may lead to massive catastrophe.

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