Swine flu stats

Every year in the United States, an average of five to 20 percent of the population (20% of 350 million = 70 million) gets the flu. Of those, about 200,000 (0.28% of those with the flu) people are hospitalized for flu complications and about 36,000 (1.8% of those hospitalized) die from the flu and flu-related complications—primarily pneumonia.

The flu tends to hit children and the elderly hardest. An average of 92 children under the age of five die each year, while more than 90 percent of flu-related deaths occur in those 65 and older.

Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases
Italicized are my additions

(August 29th, 2009:) More than 2,180 people around the world have died from the swine flu virus since it emerged in April, 2009, according to the latest WHO figures.

In the southern hemisphere where the flu-prone winter season is tailing off, the WHO said cities in several countries had reported that nearly 15 percent of hospitalised cases required intensive care.

Source: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/health_flu_who

How many people died from flu during the 2007-08 season?

Exact numbers of how many people died from flu this season cannot be determined. Flu-associated deaths (which have laboratory confirmed influenza), are only a nationally notifiable condition among children; however not all pediatric influenza deaths may be detected and reported and there is no requirement to report adult deaths from influenza.

In addition, many people who die from flu complications are not tested, or they seek medical care later in their illness when flu can no longer be detected from respiratory samples. However, CDC tracks pneumonia and influenza (P&I) deaths through the 122 Cities Mortality Reporting System.

This system collects information each week on the total number of death certificates filed in each of the 122 participating cities and the number of death certificates with pneumonia or influenza listed as a cause of death. The 122 Cities Mortality Reporting system helps gauge the severity of a flu season compared with other years. However, only a proportion of all P&I deaths are influenza-related and, as noted, most flu deaths are not lab confirmed.

Thus, this system does not allow for an estimation of the number of deaths, only the relative severity among different influenza seasons. For the 2007-08 season, the proportion of deaths due to pneumonia and influenza was higher than the previous two years, but was similar to the 2004-05 season.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/season.htm

It is worth remembering that seasonal flu often poses a serious threat to public health: each year it kills 250,000 - 500,000 around the world.

Source: BBC, http://www.theroadtothehorizon.org/2009/04/how-many-people-die-of-flu-every-year.html

As of August 23 2009, there are over 209,438 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection, including at least 2,185 deaths. (1.04%)

Source: WHO (as above)

An average of 195,000 people in the USA died annually due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, according to a new study of 37 million patient records that was released today by HealthGrades, the healthcare quality company.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/11856.php