In a reminder that the new strain of H1N1 influenza may not be as benign as originally thought, federal health officials reported Thursday that 100 pregnant women infected with the virus were hospitalized in intensive care units in the first four months of the outbreak, and 28 have died. "What we are seeing is quite striking," said Anne Schuchat, a physician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta who is helping direct the government's response to the pandemic. "The obstetric caregivers here, and the ones that we're speaking with [around the country], have rarely seen this kind of thing in practice," she said at a weekly briefing. The 28 deaths occurred between the emergence of the strain in late April and the end of August. Until this outbreak, hospitals were not required to report to public health authorities deaths from influenza, except in children. As a consequence, the "expected" mortality of pregnant women who become ill with seasonal flu strains is not known. However, pregnant women have been among the victims of the novel H1N1 swine flu strain since the first cases were found in April. "Whether this is more common or people are just noticing it because we're attending to this H1N1 virus, it's difficult to say," Schuchat said. However, she added, anecdotal reports are that "doctors around the country . . . have never seen this kind of thing before." Most previous influenza pandemics have also had what appeared to be unusually high death rates in pregnant women. Pregnant women are among the five "initial target groups" that public health authorities say should be offered the pandemic H1N1 vaccine when it is available. In the briefing, Schuchat said that 600,000 doses of the nasal-spray form of the vaccine will arrive in 25 states and cities by Tuesday. The shipments mark the start of the unprecedented effort to offer a pandemic flu shot to every American who wants one. The orders accepted Wednesday came from about half the jurisdictions -- states, territories and some large cities with their own health departments -- empowered to distribute the vaccine.
