Ethnicity was another major risk factor of pH1N1 susceptibility identified in several populations in North America and Australasia. The increased proportion of aboriginal individuals presenting with severe pH1N1 infection was not unique for this pandemic and was also seen in the 1918 H1N1 pandemic during which mortality in aboriginal communities in North America (3%-9%) was significantly higher than among nonaboriginal communities [16, 17] . In the 2009 pandemic, Pacific Islanders accounted for 2.5% of the Australian population but made up 9.7% of patients admitted to Australian ICUs with confirmed pH1N1. Maori individuals represent 13.6% of the New Zealand population, but accounted for 25% of ICU admissions in the ANZIC study [18] . Kumar et al. [12] also reported 25.6% of the individuals admitted to ICUs in Canada belonged to First Nations, Inuit, Metis, or aboriginal ethnicities; this is an overrepresentation compared to the 4.4% rate of selfreported aboriginal ethnicity according to the 2001 census (Statistics Canada). Similarly, pH1N1 mortality rates among American-Indian/Alaska Natives were four times higher than persons in all other ethnic populations combined in the United States [19] .