Although the pandemic H1N1 flu tends to strike younger people, it can be life-threatening when older people are infected, California researchers said.

Whos dying from the H1N1 flu pandemic? In the first four months of the pandemic, 1,088 people in the state needed inpatient care or died of the pandemic flu strain, according to Janice Louie, MD, of the California Department of Public Health and colleagues.

The median age of the victims was 27 — younger than is usually seen with the seasonal flu — but the highest case fatality rate was seen among those 50 and older, Louie and colleagues reported in the Nov. 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Those findings are based on statewide enhanced public health surveillance between April 23 and Aug. 11, the researchers said. The first cases of the pandemic flu in the U.S. were reported in Southern California on April 17.