First Swine Flu Death In Texas Takes Life Of Toddler Boy

A toddler boy aged 23-months has died of the swine flu in Texas. This child’s death is the first confirmed death of swine flu in the United States. Read more on the swine flu death and the latest below.

The CDC made this announcement:

“We have confirmed the first death in this country in a 23-month-old child in Texas,” said Richard Besser, the acting director the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), said on CNN.

“As a parent and a pediatrician my heart goes out to the family. As I’ve been saying for the past few days flu is a very serious infection, and each virus is unique so it is hard to know what we’re going to be seeing,” Besser added.

“But given what we’ve seen in Mexico we have expected that we would see more severe infections and that we would see deaths.”

US health authorities have said there were 65 confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu that killed 159 people in Mexico.

Before the toddler’s death in Texas, most of the US cases have been pretty mild, with only a few people requiring hospitalization.

If the virus continues to spread, WHO has said it would.  heighten its pandemic flu alert to level five. Level five is means it is from human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in a single region.

The CDC has confirmed only one case of human-to-human transmission in the United States other than people that had traveled to Mexico, the outbreak epicenter.

The US infections were spread across six states so far, with most cases being in a private school in New York City, affecting students who had recently visited Mexico.

One case in Indiana was a person who had not recently visited Mexico and so did not have direct exposure to the virus.

“It is very likely that we see more serious presentations of illness and some deaths as we go through this flu cycle,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters Tuesday.

California, which on Tuesday declared a state emergency due to the flu outbreak, ruled out swine flu as the cause of one recent death in the Los Angeles area. But the death of another man continued to be investigated after initial tests proved inconclusive.

“Because we are at the beginning of the summer, this particular outbreak may die naturally and then we could see a resurgence in the fall. This is going to be a marathon,” Napolitano cautioned.

US health authorities did state that around 35,000 people die each year just with the regular US influenza season.

But now this is considered a health emergency, which opened up federal stockpiles of drugs and medical supplies to states.

The CDC is considering changing the name from “swine flu” to deal with public misconceptions, Besser said, stressing that human-to-human infection was the real risk rather than eating pork.

Apart from Indiana and California, the states of New York, Texas, Kansas and Ohio have all confirmed human swine flu cases.

Our condolences to the family of the toddler boy that lost his life to the swine flu.

Posted by: Monya

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