More info an that? I have been wondering about the "young, strong people are more likely to die". The only thing I could think about was that they might be more likely to mix with other people and therefore get infected. Your explanation would make more sense, I suppose.
Q: Why is it more deadly in Mexico than anywhere else it’s surfaced?
CNN: The short answer is investigators don’t know. The deaths have occurred in healthy people, as opposed to those usually most at risk from the flu: the young, the old and those with compromised immune systems. The same thing happened in recent years with the SARS and avian flu outbreaks. The spreading virus starts a cascade within the body as the immune system overreacts. Fluid builds up in the lungs and inflammatory cells throughout the body react to the infection.
Using rough numbers. In Mexico there have been about 2000 cases of people that MIGHT have the swine flu (based on symptoms) and had to be hospitalized. There have been about 150 deaths that MIGHT have had the swine flu. (Only 7 have been confirmed.) So all this numbers are very speculative because they do not know if they really have influenza I think there are only two laboratories in the world that can do the test.
So, there may be a lot more people in Mexico that have been infected but they have not been detected because they did not end in a hospital.
Stick with the short answer: "investigators don't know".
The rest of the answer is about other viruses better understood in hindsight, and might apply if current patterns in Mexico are better understood. Which they aren't yet.
