A new study published in the British journal, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, co-authored by a team of researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), argues that the “18,500 laboratory-confirmed deaths caused by the 2009 pandemic influenza A H1N1 reported worldwide for the period April 2009 to August 2010,” was “likely to be only a fraction of the true number of the deaths associated with the 2009 pandemic influenza.”

The findings presented in the study “estimate that globally there were 201,220 respiratory deaths (range 105,700-395,600) with an additional 83,300 cardiovascular deaths (46,000 – 179,900) associated with the 2009 pandemic A H1N1. 80 percent of the respiratory and cardiovascular deaths were in people younger than 65 years and 51 percent occurred in Southeast Asia and Africa.”  These figures represent a mortality rate “15 times higher than reported laboratory-confirmed deaths.”

The study’s interpretation of the data is that given the “disproportionate number of estimated pandemic deaths might have occurred in these regions,” [Southeast Asia and Africa] future “efforts to prevent influenza need to effectively target these regions in future pandemics.”