Serbia Registers First Swine Flu Death

Serbian health officials have confirmed the country's first fatality from the H1N1 virus.

Tanjug news agency reports that Branislav Tiodorovic from the Health Ministry’s working group for pandemics has confirmed that a 46-year-old woman from Kraljevo, who had been suffering from a serious bout of the virus, died on Wednesday at the Kragujevac Clinical Centre.

He said that there is no need for panic, while stressing that the situation should be taken seriously, and that if doctors recommend hospitalisation patients should agree to it.

The WHO reported that 340,000 cases of swine flu had been confirmed worldwide and 4,100 people had died from the virus as of September 27. The organisation recently announced that the virus will spread quickly in coming months, infecting large numbers of people.

The Serbian ministry has recorded 134 cases of H1N1 so far. The deceased was hospitalised on October 5. Her's was the first life-threatening case of the influenza in Serbia.

In an interview with Beta news agency, Health Minister Tomica Milosavljevic said recently that the country is still waiting in line to buy the H1N1 vaccine, but has hastily purchased respirators to equip as many intensive care units as possible.

"The risk of a pandemic is very great," the agency quoted Milosavljevic as saying.

For more information, please see Balkan Insight's "Timeline: Swine Flu
in the Balkans".