Detailed sickest swine flu cases in Canada, Mexico

Rapidly worsening breathing problems in the sickest swine flu patients in Mexico and Canada present a scary worst - case scenario and could foreshadow what U. S. doctors face as winter flu season sets in, new reports suggest.
In the wholesale outbreak ' s maiden signal, legion critically ill patients in both countries were plump, although their euthanasia rates weren ' t higher than others. Many in both countries also were younger than those typically hard hit by seasonal flu, as has been found in the United States.

A report on U. S. cases published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine provided similar guidance. It found that one - quarter of Americans sick enough to be hospitalized with swine flu last spring needed intensive care and 7 percent died.

In the Mexican report on six hospitals between March and June, critical illness developed quickly in 58 of almost 900 patients with confirmed or suspected swine flu patients _ a rate of just under 7 percent. But 24 of these sickest patients died within two months, said the study led by Dr. Guillermo Dominguez - Cherit of the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition Salvador Zubiran in Mexico City.