About 22 million Americans have become ill with pandemic H1N1 influenza in the past six months and 3,900 have died, according to new estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of pediatric deaths—about 540—is four times as high as the number that physicians, hospitals and health departments had reported to the CDC. The new estimates are drawn from detailed surveillance and record-checking in 10 states, and found the total number of people who have been hospitalized is 98,000, with 36,000 of them age 17 and younger. The vast majority of deaths have been in people age 18 to 64.
