As of Dec. 27, 2019, 55 people had died and 2,506 had been hospitalized due to e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury, according to CDC data.
Vaping hospitalizations have been reported from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, while the deaths have been confirmed in 27 states and the District of Columbia.
Vaping lung injuries grew into an epidemic in the last year, reaching their peak in September, according to CDC data. Seventy-eight present of those hospitalized were of people under 35 years old; their median age was 24 years. Eighty percent reported using products containing THC, while 54 percent reported using products with nicotine.
The most commonly reported product brand among vaping hospitalization cases was Dank vapes (56 percent), a class of largely counterfeit THC products of unknown origin. But all of the vaping cases cannot be linked to single brand of products containing THC, the CDC said.
For a timeline of the vaping-related illness outbreak in 2019, click here.
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