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H1N1: Worse Than Health Experts Thought

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  • Friday, May 17 2013 11:17 PM EDT2013-05-18 03:17:33 GMT
    An inmate is on the loose in Etowah County.  The Sheriff's department says an inmate kitchen worker escaped the Etowah County Detention Center (ECDC) Friday morning.  Justin Wade Hopkins, 30, escaped from
    The Etowah County Sheriff's Office says an inmate kitchen worker escaped the Etowah County Detention Center Friday morning. 

The swine flu virus swept across the globe in 2009, claiming thousands of lives in 12 countries.  However, the H1N1 pandemic may have been much more widespread than first reported.  According to a new study released Monday by The Lancet, researchers now estimate more than 284,000 people died the first year the virus spread.  That's 15 times higher than the initial World Health Organization tally for the first 16 months.  

Researchers say the numbers were skewed in Africa and Southeast Asia.  Cases in those regions made up only 12-percent of the original WHO statistics.  However, they comprised 51-percent of the revised estimates.  Researchers blame the high mortality rate in Africa on a lack of access to health care and vaccines.