RP’s swine flu death toll rises to 6

Philippine health officials say three more people have died of A(H1N1)- or swine flu-related illnesses, bring the country's death toll to six. Lyndon Lee Suy said Thursday that officials have confirmed 3,207 swine flu infections since May and 2,975 of the patients have recovered. Suy is a health department manager for infectious diseases. So far, all recorded deaths related to A(H1N1) in the country were patients who had existing medical conditions, the Department of Health (DOH) has said. Among the fatalities were a 49-year-old woman who had a heart disease; a 19-year-old man with asthma; and a 49-year-old man with emphysema. Two other Filipinos abroad have also died of swine flu. One was a 42-year-old seaman from the La Union province who died from complications of the both A(H1N1) influenza and the bacterium Community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (CA-MRSA) in Hong Kong. On Monday, a 37-year-old Filipino domestic helper in Hong Kong also succumbed to the disease after weeks in hospital. The DOH stopped giving regular updates on swine flu after the World Health Organization ceased requiring countries to submit regular reports of individual laboratory-confirmed cases. WHO has asked countries to instead shift to reporting unusual events such as clusters of severe or fatal infections. In its July 27 update, WHO recorded 134,503 confirmed cases worldwide with 816 deaths. Of these figures, 87,965 or 65 percent of the infections and 707 deaths (86 percent) were recorded in the Americas. - AP, GMANews.TV