H1N1 deaths rise

By Khanyisa Tabata
24 August 2009

Health Mister Aaron Motsoaledi has issued an instruction to health workers to put all pregnant women with flu-like symptoms on Tamiflu.

This comes after the latest victims of swine flu were pregnant women who were in their last month of pregnancy.

The directive to all health care workers, in line with department of Health of Pandemic Influenza guidelines, is to put pregnant women with flu-like symptoms on Tamiflu treatment.

Dr Motsoaledi said that they should not wait for the test results to first confirm whether they had flu or not.

On Monday, the Department of Health confirmed that there were now 20 H1N1-related deaths in South Africa.

The majority of these deaths are pregnant women with some of them having other under-lying illnesses such as diabetes and TB.

There are over 5000 cases of the H1N1 influenza in the country, with the majority being reported in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

Most of these cases remain in the mild and self-limiting category.

The first swine flu death was a 22-year-old student from Stellenbosch University; the second was a man from KwaZulu-Natal and the third was a 42-year-old male from the Western Cape.