MANILA, 28 July 2009, 1600 hrs– Several fatalities related to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 were reported across the Western Pacific Region over the past 24-hours, including the death of a Filipino woman in Hong Kong (China). Additional fatalities were reported in Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore.
The additional deaths took to 81 the number of fatalities in the Western Pacific Region related to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009. The 37-year-old Filipino woman died on July 27 in Hong Kong (China) after being admitted to an intensive care unit on 7 July, according to the Centre for Health Protection, a division of the Department of Health. She is the second Filipino to die in Hong Kong (China) of causes related to the virus, after the death of a Philippine man in mid-July.
Singapore’s Ministry of Health announced that country’s fifth virus-related death, a 34-year-old woman with acute myeloid leukaemia who died of pneumonia on 27 July, with Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 as a contributing factor. In Malaysia, a 46-year old Malaysian man who had recently returned from Belgium, where he had been employed, died of severe pneumonia, according to media reports which also stated that tests had confirmed he was infected with Pandemic (H1N1) 2009.
The number of fatalities in Australia related to the virus climbed to 50. Two-thirds of these deaths have occurred in the most populous states of New South Wales and Victoria. Currently there are 383 people in hospitals around Australia with the virus, 103 of whom are in intensive care units.
Meanwhile, New Zealand’s Ministry of Health announced one additional death linked to the virus, taking its national total of such deaths to 12. Deputy Director of Public Health Dr Fran McGrath the national total of virus-linked deaths all met the national standard for death due to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009. When the cause of death is unclear, the death may be referred to a coroner to investigate, she added.
Several countries in the Western Pacific Region have shifted from containment to a mitigation phase in response to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009, and are no longer testing all suspected cases nor reporting new confirmed cases daily. As a result, the actual number of infections in the Region is likely to be higher than official WHO figures.
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