Woman, 27, dies of swine flu in Hong Kong

Jan 27, 2011, 3:47 GMT

Hong Kong - A 27-year-old woman has died of swine flu in Hong Kong and 15 other patients around the city were in intensive care units with flu viruses, hospital officials said Thursday.

The woman died on Wednesday, one day after being admitted to hospital with the H1N1 virus and treated with Tamiflu and antibiotics, a spokesman for the Hong Kong Hospital Authority said.

A 16-year-old boy admitted to hospital Sunday was diagnosed with swine flu and was among 15 patients in intensive care units with swine flu and other flu viruses, he said.

Health officials in Hong Kong, where around 80 people died of swine flu in the global 2009 outbreak, have so far decided not to raise the level of the city's flu alert.

The Hong Kong government was accused of overreacting when it bought 3 million doses of swine flu vaccine during the 2009 outbreak. Around 2.8 million unused doses were later dumped.

Six Hong Kong residents died in the first modern outbreak of human bird flu in 1997. Another 299 Hong Kong people died in the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.

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