Some of the children were healthy while nearly two-third of them had neurological disorders like cerebral palsy
, muscular dystrophy and chronic lung disease.
"Most of the children who had fatal H1N1 this past spring had an underlying condition," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, in a press conference yesterday. "There were some children who didn't have an underlying condition and became ill, generally infected also by bacteria."
Children suffering from nervous disorders more prone to swine flu
It has been established that since children with nervous disorders cannot cough hard enough to clear their airways, they are at a higher risk of the swine flu complications.
If the children suffering from nervous disorders run a fever, they should be promptly treated by the doctors, and children without any chronic history should consider it a warning sign, said Dr. Frieden.
“Treatment in the first 48 hours can make a big difference in hastening your recovery,” he said.
As the children seem to be more vulnerable to the swine flu complications, they should be vaccinated as soon as the H1N1 vaccines are available, recommended Dr. Frieden.
Pregnant women have also high risk of infection from the flu, so they also need to be given precedence for the vaccine.
N95 respirators recommended for health care workers
In yet another report issued by the Institute of Medicine, it has been recommended that the health care workers should wear specially-fitted mask called an N95 respirator while treating the swine flu patients.
Unlike other surgical masks, this mask is better able to seal out the viruses as it is tighter.
Dr. John Bartlett, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution said, "The N95 mask screens out small particles.
"These are better protection than the familiar surgical mask and are advocated for health care workers for two reasons: [Workers] are expected to have risk exposure and they can't get sick because that risks influenza in the patients."
The nation has 79.7 million N95s in the ‘strategic national stockpile’ as informed by a spokesman for the CDC.
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