Swine flu in decline

The current wave of pandemic H1N1 flu appears to have peaked, with four weeks of declines in several key indicators, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.

Despite those declines, the outbreak is continuing to take a heavy toll of hospitalizations and deaths, especially among children.

Widespread activity of swine flu was reported in 32 states in the week ending Nov. 21, down from 43 states in the week before and 48 a month ago.

Influenzalike illnesses accounted for 4.3 percent of all visits to doctors' offices during the week, down from nearly double that proportion in October. That is still well above the normal level, 2.3 percent, for this time of year, however.

Between Aug. 30 and Nov. 21, there were 29,348 confirmed swine flu hospitalizations and 1,224 deaths in the United States, although those numbers generally are assumed to be very low. New figures are expected in a couple of weeks, but two weeks ago the CDC estimated that at least 4,000 people had died from swine flu, 98,000 had been hospitalized and 22 million had contracted the virus.

In the week ending Nov. 21, there were 27 laboratory-confirmed swine flu deaths in children and infants younger than 18 and another seven from influenza A that was not tested to see if it was swine flu -- the largest toll in a single week since the pandemic began in April. That brings the total number of pediatric deaths from influenza to 234 since April. A normal flu season is typically marked by about 30 to 40 pediatric deaths.

The agency noted that the number of pediatric deaths apparently has not peaked because death reporting lags behind other reports, often by three or four weeks. One of the seasonal flu deaths included in this week's report, for example, was a death that occurred in May 2009 and that has just now been reported to the CDC.

As of last Wednesday, there were 61 million doses of swine flu vaccine available. Newer numbers are expected to be released Tuesday.