90 People Have Now Died of Swine Flu in Venezuela
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=345610&CategoryId=10717
Deaths from AH1N1 flu virus have risen to 90 in Venezuela, where 9,805 people suspected of having the illness have been tested with 1,746 positive results, the minister of community health said Tuesday.
“Of the 90 deaths, 17 were pregnant women,” Indira Corado said, adding that in the majority of cases the baby was saved by cesarean section.
Corado also said on state television that “80 percent of the fatalities had an underlying pathology” such as diabetes or obesity.
She also said that 75 percent of those infected delayed as long as six days before seeing a doctor.
Corado’s figures correct those released previously by Health Minister Carlos Rotondaro, who last week, when he reported the deaths of 87 people from swine flu, said that until then some 1,900 cases had tested positive for the illness.
Rotondaro also said that thanks to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, or ALBA, Venezuela will receive next January a million doses of swine-flu vaccine, and that it will then be distributed free of charge.
The government of President Hugo Chavez “guarantees the medicine supply, adequate medical care and the supply of vaccines, which has been organized through ALBA,” Rotondaro said.
ALBA, based on the principle of mutual regional solidarity, was founded in 2004 by Venezuela – whose oil wealth powers the initiative – and Cuba, joined later by Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda.
Rotondaro did not specify whether these million doses include or are additional to the purchase of 5 million doses of vaccine for $25 million announced at the beginning of last month.
The first case of AH1N1 virus in Venezuela was detected on April 28 in a 22-year-old man who had been on a trip to Panama. EFE
Details on the previously reported 10th death in Maryland
http://your4state.com/content/fulltext/?cid=83462
HAGERSTOWN, MD - A truck driver from Hagerstown with four children is Washington County’s first victim of the swine flu.
Kendall Stoner, 45, died at Washington County Hospital on Sunday.
“Wednesday, I took him to the ER,” his wife Lisa told NBC25. “In 11 days, he lost his life.”
She says he first complained of a sore throat and fatigue. It turned into pneumonia and then congestive heart failure.
Lisa Stoner says her husband was very conscious of germs and constantly carried hand sanitizer.
“Even that didn’t save his life,” she said.