Nine more swine flu deaths in Chile

Sunday July 12, 2009

Chile has reported nine more swine flu fatalities, bringing the country's total death toll from the virus to 25, with more than 9,500 confirmed infections.

'With regard to the laboratory-confirmed cases, 4.2 per cent of them have required hospitalisation and there have been 25 deaths associated with the new human influenza,' the health ministry said in its latest A(H1N1) virus report on Saturday.

Children aged five to 19 comprised 50 per cent of the total cases, but that 'in the last week, we have observed an increase in confirmed cases among children under five, who now comprise 14 percent' of the total, the ministry reported.

Chile's number of confirmed infections shot up by nearly 1,500 over the past week, to 9,549, the ministry said.

Chile and Argentina -- the country hardest hit by swine flu in South America with 88 deaths -- share the southern cone of the continent, which is in the midst of winter.

The spread of swine flu in the southern hemisphere is being closely monitored by health experts as it could be a harbinger of things to come later this year north of the equator, when North America, Europe and much of Asia enter autumn and winter when swine flu spreads more rapidly.

With the nine new deaths in Chile and a fifth death reported in Colombia, the number of swine flu fatalities in South America has risen to 140.

The World Health Organisation, which last month designated a global swine flu pandemic, earlier this week reported 94,512 confirmed infections, including 429 deaths.