A 23-year-old Vietnamese woman died from influenza A(H1N1) two days after giving birth to a baby boy, health authorities in Changhua County reported yesterday.
The woman, the spouse of a Taiwanese man, was six months pregnant when she was admitted to Changhua Christian Hospital on Aug. 23 with severe flu symptoms, said Yeh Yen-po (葉彥伯), director of the Changhua County Government’s health department.
She tested positive for A(H1N1) influenza the following day and was placed in an intensive care ward, the physician who attended her at the hospital said.
The woman was given the antiviral drug Tamiflu, but her condition failed to improve, the physician said, adding that her womb could not function normally because she had breathing difficulties.
On Friday, the woman gave natural birth to a baby boy, who was not breathing and had no heartbeat at the time.
“After emergency treatment, the infant is now in a stable condition and has not shown any flu-like symptoms,” the physician said, adding that laboratory tests also gave him a clean bill of health.
However, his mother’s health deteriorated after the delivery and she died on Sunday despite emergency efforts to resuscitate her, the physician said.
According to the physician, the woman developed a fever, muscle pains and other flu-like symptoms on Aug. 16, but did not go to hospital until Aug. 23 when her condition worsened.
The Vietnamese woman is the 14th A(H1N1)-related fatality recorded in Taiwan, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
Earlier on Sunday, an eight-year-old girl with cerebral palsy also succumbed to swine flu, the CECC said.
The girl lived with her parents and had never attended school, Yeh said, adding that neither of her parents had shown any flu-like symptoms.
The girl developed a fever on Aug. 31 and was hospitalized on Sept. 2 at a medical center in central Taiwan where she had been having treatment for cerebral palsy. She was reported as a severe A(H1N1) case last Tuesday.
A total of 222 patients nationwide have so far been hospitalized with severe H1N1 symptoms, CECC statistics show.
Sixty-one of the patients remain in hospital, while the others have recovered and been discharged.
Meanwhile, in response to public concern over the possible spread of A(H1N1) with most of the nation’s junior high and high school students about to make graduation trips in the coming weeks, the CECC yesterday said trips could proceed as scheduled.
“High school students’ graduation trips will not speed up the epidemic as the virus has already spread throughout Taiwan,” CECC official Wang Jen-hsien (王任賢) said.
“The main groups at risk for swine flu are adults between 20 and 50 with cardiac problems, people who are obese and pregnant women,” he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JIMMY CHUANG
RSS