WASHINGTON – As many as 80 million Americans have been infected with H1N1 swine flu, with as many as 16,000 deaths and more than 360,000 hospitalizations, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
And only about 62 million Americans have been vaccinated, even though more than 130 million doses of vaccine were made available and 160 million were told they were at high priority for getting the vaccine.
"CDC estimates that between 39 million and 80 million cases of 2009 H1N1 occurred between April and December 12, 2009. The mid-level in this range is about 55 million people infected with 2009 H1N1," the CDC said in a statement.
The WHO numbers are confirmed, laboratory cases of H1N1; while the CDC number is an educated estimate for the U.S and is acknowledged to be very low.
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