I believe that I read somewhere that the case fatality rates for children 15 years old and under, was about 90%. Both of my kids fit in to that description- and that is why I am here, or curevents, or recombonics or googling “bid flu news” every free moment.
Is the 90% figure correct? Does anybody have a link to these figures? Using the 172 WHO confirmed cases. I know that an inordinant # of cases are kids. But what is the official death rate for children???
I need these figures. These figures need to be the ones that people are quoting everyday. Maybe people wouldn’t worry so much about Gross National Product if they thought that their kids- grandkids, nieces and nephews were at risk. Down here things are good (the economy) and that is all alot of people think of. The All Mighty DOLLAR
Clark-
Someone here, probably gs, dubina or racter, collated what info was available on the CFR by age group. Search the wiki if you have some time.
Remember that the CFR numbers that we have are nonsense and can only we used relative to locale. Indonesia to Thailand, etc. Even then there is going to be wide variation in testing and reporting of LPAI.
I think that many of us feel that 50–75% mortality rate is inordinately high and that over time, we’ll learn about hundreds of cases that recovered without symptoms and were not reported as ever infected. When you increase the denominator by those cases, CFR drops like a rock.
Clark, I’m in the same boat with 5 children that fit that profile. All we can do as parents is take a deep breath, do our preparations, and try and stay on top of things.
Currently, to me my preparations would have been as likely to have been made for hurricane season as for a pandemic as for a potential economic system. They are all to ensure the health and welfare of my family unit.
I get the heebie jeebies a lot. But remember that it is the children and young adults that have primary responsibility for taking care of the backyard poultry in the countries that have been affected by human cases thus far. I think a little education would go a long way towards lowering any hypothetical CFR from a pandemic.
NS1:
Not me. Ought to be on the Wiki somewhere, though. To-do list.
But
50% of cases were 16 years or younger; 75% of cases were 29 years or younger; 90% of cases were 39 years or younger. Most patients were born after 1968.
Even if it turns out that there aren’t a lot of asymptomatic or subclinical cases (and I’m betting that there aren’t) the demographics of cases of infection with the virus in its present form may be skewed due to some peculiarity of the mode of transmission from bird to human which favors children (could be something related to less hygenic behavior among children, or something else).
sereoprevalence data is on the link.
The CFR link is here and was done by Monotreme.
actually, that’s simply the fatalities by age, not a rate. You need the WHO numbers for a rate. But remember that the true denominator (how many people have H5N1) is somewhat in dispute. Most of the seoprevalence data published to date says it’s small, but we don’t ahve numbers from Turkey, e.g. and may ahve missed mild cases.
Yeah the rate issue is a tricky one. Why are there so many fatalities in the young?
Explanation 1: The young are the one in contact with the virus. This is the “children play with chickens” hypothesis.
Explanation 2: The numbers follow the numbers of individuals in these age groups in each of the affected countries. If there were far fewer adults, then far fewer would be infected. For this idea to be possible, the population curve would have to have its peak in the under 10 years age groups. Translation: prevalence is no higher in the young than in the old. From what I know, the true population curves look different, i.e. there are NOT a disproportionate number of the very young in those countries.
Explanation 3: Children are disproportionately vulnerable to infection due to physiological diffs.
Right now, it seems to me that #1 and #3 are the ones in play. Those who have bought into the cytokine storm hypothesis are scratching their heads over this, because according to the cytokine account, the death curves should resemble those from 1918. With their peak at about 20 years, ±. They don’t.
Thanks for looking, but none of these links are for the Case Fatality Rates for children. What I am looking for is simply the number of under 15 year olds (or some other random age, maybe 18 year olds?) amongst the 173 confirmed H5N1 cases by WHO. Then, how many of them died? I believe that the percentage is very high- but what is the actual number(%)?
The reason I am asking is because what I have heard is that keeping children out of harms way is the key to protecting the whole community. If the CFR for kids was published, maybe parents would keep their kids home at the first whisper of H2H- rather than wait that extra two days etc. Parents work themselves into tizzes about imaginary “stanger danger” threats to kids. This threat is real (IMO) and needs to be taken seriously. People where I live are not afraid or even particularly worried about this.
How can I scare them? Using real numbers from WHO.
Don’t try “scare” them into planning- in my experience, it only makes people run from the issue even faster. A short, calm, educated conversation with the current statistics blended in along with the fact that preparations to protect the little ones is something that can be done and has worked in past pandemics may be more effective. People need to hear what can be done vs what can’t be done.
Dem and Melanie- I understand the argument about seroprevalence data, and of course, as more hard, published info comes in, CFR would change. I just want the children’s CFRate as it stands now, with the confirmed data we have now. But where is the number? GS, do you know?
Grace, I didn’t mean “scare” in the sense of telling ghost stories, I meant “scare” in the sense of providing confirmed data from the WQorld Health Organization.
For me, fear (for their safety) has been constant in the background since the day my kids were born. I imagine most mammalian parents feel the same way. Keep them safe until they are big enough to fight their own fights. That is just the way it has been for me.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10894225/
Children seen at particular risk for bird flu All but two of the 21 confirmed Turkish human cases involve kids, teens
Updated: 3:02 p.m. ET Jan. 17, 2006
ANKARA, Turkey - One victim is a 5-year-old boy who fell critically ill after killing a duck for New Year’s dinner. Another is his 12-year-old sister, who died last weekend. Three were siblings who succumbed in rapid succession, leaving their grieving parents with just one surviving child.
Just as in East and Southeast Asia, where at least 77 people have died of bird flu since 2003, children appear to be particularly susceptible to the lethal H5N1 strain — if only because they are more likely to touch or play with diseased birds.
“So far it looks like the same pattern,” World Health Organization spokeswoman Maria Cheng told The Associated Press Tuesday.
Cheng said the U.N. health agency did not yet have figures for the number of children who have contracted H5N1 worldwide and declined to offer an estimate. But in Turkey, WHO had a clearer picture: All but two of the 21 confirmed human cases, it said, have involved children and teens aged 4 to 18.
How is it possible that they do not have the figures? I imagine it would take 5 minutes to figure out if you had rudementary information on the 173 confirmed cases of H5N1?? This is so weird. I thought it was such a straightforward question to ask. (CFR for under 15 yo).I just googled it and have found nothing so far.
These figures are not published! Why not?
I don’t care whether it is better to prep with dark chocolate or milk chocolate.
Clark, I am interested in the same question you are. That’s why I put this table? together. The problem with calculating an overall CFR for different ages is that the information for Viet Nam is incomplete. A substantial number of cases comes from this country have not been described by the WHO. I have got some of the missing information from publication but I am *still* trying to find all the information for this country.
One could calculate the CFR for different ages for other countries, however. I’ll see what I can do for Thailand and Indonesia and post links to anything I do here.
Thanks Montreme- sometimes I feel myself really feeling upset about all of this. My Head Of Department just recommended positive thinking as a way to deal with the Bird Flu. “If you focus on it, it will get you”.”Just focus on something else”. It is hard for me to do that. The regualr posters here and curevents are my GodSend. cheers
clark: Positive thinking won’t work, but facts might be helpful.
Here are the numbers for Indonesia. There are 7 cases of children 15 years or younger confirmed to have been infected with H5N1. 4 of them died. This gives a CFR of 57%. The real number is probably worse than this because there were a couple of young children who died who were not tested but were relatives of people who were confirmed to be infected with H5N1. You can read more about the Indonesia cases here?.
Here are the numbers for Thailand. There have been 12 cases of infection by H5N1 in children 15 years old or younger (confirmed by the WHO). 9 of them have died giving a CFR of 75%. Again, the real number is probably worse for the same reasons as above. You can read more about the Thai cases here?.
Hi Dem- I looked at the link again to Monotremes figures and got a 63.5% case fatality rate for the 0 to 19 year old group from data til October, 2005. 52 sick, 33 died.
Here is the tinyurl to the data http://tinyurl.com/oasjv
Older thread, closing for speed purposes.
check dates