A Lancet paper quoted childhood deaths in England from influenza as being two per million for under 14s.
The most common infections were herpes viruses, which cause cold sores, enteroviruses that upset stomaches, influenza, and rhinoviruses that trigger common colds.
While the pandemic has been fairly mild here, I think it will kill off for ever the notion (among doctors and the public alike) around influenza that "Oh, it's only flu".
Symptoms of influenza include fever, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and cough and complications include pneumonia and ear infections.
But the BMJ (where I work) has published papers questioning the quality of evidence for the benefits of the influenza vaccine, and whether industry-funded trials have reported "over-optimistic" results.
In one year during the influenza A H1N1 pandemic a total of 70 children died, 15 of whom were healthy before falling ill.
The Cochrane review does say that vaccination can protect children from influenza but there is not conclusive evidence that vaccinations reduce hospitalisations and deaths in children.
Children spread influenza, and vaccinating them will protect elderly and very young people, as well as those with existing medical conditions.
In October 1918, a month before the end of the war, Edith Schiele, six-months pregnant with their first child, died of Spanish influenza.
"No," he says, because the trials show a reporting bias on the harms of the live attenuated influenza vaccine (the form of vaccine delivered nasally).
Knowledge about the new virus, Dr Alberts wrote, "could well be essential for speeding the development of new treatments to combat this lethal form of influenza".
