US had record flu deaths last year, says CDC

A record number of US patients died from flu last year, with 80 000 deaths recorded in 2017-18, says the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield.

He gave the 80 000 estimate during an interview with the Associated Press in New York. It has not yet been published in official data, which is expected within weeks, but the CDC said that the published figure would not be lower.

It means that the 2017-18 period will have had the highest number of deaths from flu, by some margin, since tracking began in 1976. The previous record was 56 000 in 2012-13. The lowest figure in recent years …