Influenza Vaccines for the Future

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Abstract
Each year, seasonal epidemics of influenza cause serious illness and death throughout the world. In the United States, the annual burden of disease is estimated to be 25 million to 50 million cases of influenza, resulting in an average of 225,000 hospitalizations. Over the past three decades, the estimated number of influenza-associated deaths per year in the United States has ranged from 3349 to 48,614. The majority of deaths (>90%) occur among elderly persons, usually those with chronic underlying health conditions.1-3 The World Health Organization uses these estimates to extrapolate a likely global disease burden from influenza of up to 1 billion infections, 3 million to 5 million cases of severe disease, and between 300,000 and 500,000 deaths annually.1 Pandemics of influenza with varying rates of illness and death have occurred throughout history; the most notable was the 1918–1919 pandemic, which claimed an estimated 50 million to 100 million lives worldwide.4