Perspective .
"
On the other hand, influenza (commonly known as the flu) statistics paint an even bleaker picture: the World Health Organization (WHO)
estimates that worldwide, annual flu epidemics result in as many as five million cases of severe illness, and about 290 000 to 650 000 deaths.
To put it in a local context, the flu kills between 6 000 to 11 000 South Africans every year, according to the National Department of Health. About 50% of those deaths are among the elderly, and about 30% in HIV-infected people.
To put this into further context, an article by the New York Times
reports that the seasonal flu strains kill about 0.1% of people who become infected, whereas early estimates of the coronavirus death rate from Wuhan, China are around 2%.
However, we should be cautious to label this the “true death rate” for two reasons:
- Many mild-symptom or symptom-free cases are not detected.
- The sudden outbreak was hard to control and contain in the beginning – although it bought the rest of the world time to prepare for the dissemination of the virus.
This means that the actual death rate could be under 2%, and similar to that of a severe seasonal flu, below 1%, according to an editorial published in the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases."
Zakiyah Ebrahim | Health24 | 04 Mar 2020, 11:08 Since January 2020, the outbreak of the virus which causes Covid-19, has had the world in a […]
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