by Cynthia Wall

Created on: February 10, 2009   Last Updated: April 11, 2009

All good journalists know that there are six questions that have to be answered in any story: WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, AND HOW. If we answer all of these questions, we will have a more complete idea of Why People Die from the Flu.

WHO? The average annual death toll in the U.S. from flu is 36,000. This year is predicted to be milder with about 20,000 dying. World-wide, it is usually several hundred thousand. Who are these people? Except for pandemics like the 1918 Spanish flu in millions of healthy young adults died, the most casualties are usually among the very young and the very old. They are the elderly who may have compromised immune systems from diseases such as diabetes, cardiac illness, or cancer. They are the very young who can become easily dehydrated and whose young bodies can not withstand the toxic reactions set up by the flu virus. In third world countries, they are those who are infected in large numbers because no one has been vaccinated, because they may live in unsanitary conditions, and because there is inadequate medical care.

WHAT? The flu virus is nasty because it is easily transmissible, attaches to and destroys healthy cells, and mutates as it goes. In its wake, it leaves inflammation that causes drainage into sinus passages and the lungs. A body without an adequate immune system may also be host to secondary bacteria infections. Because we take so many antibiotics, bacteria may be resistant to our current medications. The common flu virus comes in three varieties A, B, and C but it may be mixed with others and the flu virus that we end up with at the end of the season may be different than the one we started with.

WHEN? Flu season runs from October until March with the peak usually in January and February. Cold winters mean people stay inside more and they are more apt to transmit disease to each other.

WHERE? Everywhere that people gather in the winter. Schools, nursing homes, and daycare centers, but the work place is also fertile ground for the flu virus. The flu virus is able to live for up to two weeks outside the body on door knobs, television remotes, countertops and other often-touched items. It can travel three feet from a sneeze thus infecting everyone walking by or seated in an airplane or bus.

WHY? There are many reasons why the flu kills the severity of the epidemic, the weakened conditions of the attacked individuals, secondary infections from pneumonia to septicemia, outbreaks in crowded facilities. The flu also kills

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