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http://www.hsph.harv...ss12212006.html

For many decades, published epidemiological literature assumed that mortality rates from the 1918-20 pandemic were distributed fairly equally. A simple population count from that period would lead to the conclusion that about 20 percent of all fatalities occurred in the developed world. "But when you look at the data," said Murray, "that number shrinks to about three or four percent."

The disparities between the developed and developing worlds during this period are striking. For example, in Denmark 0.2 percent of the population succumbed to the flu. In the United States, that figure is 0.3 percent (based on data from 24 states). In the Philippines, the mortality rate was 2.8 percent, in the Bombay region of India, 6.2 percent, and in central India, 7.8 percent, which was the highest rate of the countries and regions analyzed. According to this data then, from Denmark to central India, death rates from the 1918-1920 flu pandemic varied more than 39-fold.

The researchers then took the relationship observed in 1918 between per capita income and mortality and extrapolated it to 2004 population data. After adjusting for global income and population changes, as well as changes in age structures within different populations, the research team estimated that if a similarly virulent strain of flu virus were to strike today, about 62 million people worldwide would die.