The number of deaths from the 2009 swine flu
pandemic may be 15 times higher than initially calculated, an
international team of scientists said in a study published Tuesday by
the British journal The Lancet.

While 18,500 deaths from the H1N1 virus had been confirmed by
laboratories, new statistical calculations yielded an estimate of
284,500 who died from lung or heart problems, according to the
research led by the US government's Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC).

During the swine flu pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO)
in Geneva had been criticized for overestimating the lethal risks
from H1N1.

"We said at the time that influenza is dangerous," WHO spokesman
Gregory Hartl told dpa. "We always said during the pandemic that it
would take one or two years after the pandemic to get estimates."

In their new study, the scientists arrived at a higher number
because they assumed that mortality rates were higher in some
countries than in others, using average death rates from respiratory
diseases, as well as looking at above-average death figures from lung
and heart problems.

The study said that more than half of the deaths may have occurred
in South-East Asia and Africa.

It said that 80 per cent of those who died in the pandemic between
April 2009 and August 2010 were younger than 65.

Lead author Fatimah Dawood at the CDC said she hoped that the
research would "improve the public health response during future
pandemics in parts of the world that suffer more deaths, and to
increase the public's awareness of the importance of influenza
prevention."