The flu season last winter has killed the most people since the 1970s, says the CDC

Tens of thousands of American deaths last winter were reportedly caused by the flu and its complications, according to government officials, making it the worst in at least four decades.

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Tens of thousands of American deaths last winter were caused by the flu and its complications, the authorities said Tuesday, making it the most severe season of at least four decades.

"We lost 80,000 people last year because of the flu," Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

This number is thought to be the highest since the winter of 1976-1977.

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CDC officials do not have an exact measure of the number of flu-related deaths per year. The disease is so common that not all cases are reported and flu is not always written on death certificates. The CDC therefore uses periodically revised statistical models to make estimates.

The seemingly substantial figure is preliminary and subject to some adjustments, said CDC officials, although they do not anticipate a decline.

The flu strain that hit the United States last year was particularly severe. This tension tends to send people to the hospital and lead to deaths, especially among vulnerable people, such as young children and the elderly. The season peaked in early February and was almost complete by the end of March.

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Influenza vaccines that were not fully effective exacerbated the problem, but Redfield told AP that he "would still like to see more people get vaccinated."

The influenza experts knew that it was a very bad season, but at least one found the size of the estimate surprising.

"It's huge," said Dr. William Schaffner, a vaccine expert from Vanderbilt University. The record was almost twice as high as what health officials previously considered a bad year, he said.

According to historians, the worst recorded flu season occurred in 1918, when more than 500,000 Americans died of the disease.

Associated Press contributed to this report.