Some 500,000 New Yorkers might have been infected with A/H1N1 flu virus, New York Post reported Saturday citing federal official sources.
The number is far more than initially estimated by the city's health department.
The new data is reportedly based on a community survey that found 6.9 percent of New Yorkers experienced a flu-like illness during a three-week period in May when the illness was at its most active.
Researchers used a new type of modeling to extrapolate an estimate of how many city residents were likely infected with the new virus but didn't seek treatment, says the report.
"About half a million New Yorkers may have been infected," Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was cited as saying.
Nationwide, Schuchat said, there's probably been 50 times more cases of A/H1N1 flu than have been officially reported, says the paper.
"There have been at least a million cases of the new H1N1 virus so far this year," Schuchat was quoted as saying. "Reported cases are really just the tip of the iceberg."
New York has reportedly recorded 804 A/H1N1 flu hospitalizations and 32 deaths related to the disease.
(Xinhua News Agency June 28, 2009)
