The Australian government yesterday called for calm over the spread of swine flu a day after the country recorded its first death related to the virus.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon said that while a young Aboriginal man from a remote outback community was suffering from the virus when he died on Friday, it remained unclear whether it was swine flu or another illness that killed him.
“Whilst this is the first recorded death in Australia of a person who had swine flu, it is unclear whether that was a direct or contributing cause to the death,” Roxon said.
“We do need to remind the community that for the vast majority of people who contract this flu over the coming months, it will be very mild,” she told reporters.
Australia has so far registered no swine flu deaths despite counting 2,376 cases of the influenza A(H1N1) virus, making it the Asia-Pacific region’s worst-hit country and the fourth most affected nation in the world.
The 26-year-old man, who had “a number of major medical conditions” died in hospital in the southern city of Adelaide after being brought in from a remote indigenous community in Western Australia, officials said.
Results from the man’s autopsy are expected to be released next week.
Authorities yesterday raced to find out how swine flu had reached the isolated Kirrikurra community in the Western Desert where the dead man lived, which has been put under lockdown for a week to prevent the disease spreading.
“We presume that the transmission to this person occurred somewhere in this region, but we do have to track the movement of this person over the last three weeks to make sure,” Western Australia’s chief health officer Tarun Weeramanthri said.
Two nurses will be sent to Kirrikurra to distribute anti-viral medication and assess the situation in the community.
Swine flu has spread rapidly in Australia, which has entered the southern hemisphere winter, helping persuade the WHO to declare the first global pandemic in 40 years.
The A(H1N1) virus has infected more than 44,000 people around the world, resulting in 180 deaths since late March, WHO figures show.
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