Fifth swine flu death recorded in Trinidad and Tobago

Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has con­firmed a fifth death as a re­sult of swine flu.

Deyals­ingh con­firmed this to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, some one week af­ter a woman who was 15 weeks preg­nant died from the virus. The min­is­ter did not di­vulge the de­tails of the case but con­firmed the pa­tient fell with­in the at-risk group.

The at-risk-groups are chil­dren aged six months to five years, preg­nant women, per­sons over 65, per­sons with chron­ic med­ical con­di­tions (such as di­a­betes mel­li­tus) and per­sons with chron­ic res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es (such as asth­ma).

Deyals­ingh said apart from the five con­firmed deaths there were oth­er fa­tal­i­ties which were sus­pect­ed to have been caused by H-1-N-1. How­ev­er, these cas­es are still un­con­firmed as blood sam­ples have been sent for test­ing.

Deyals­ingh al­so urged the pub­lic to take the in­fluen­za vac­cine and ex­pressed con­cern that there had been a drop in peo­ple seek­ing the vac­cine over the past few weeks af­ter a me­dia house ran a seg­ment on the ef­fects of the vac­cine on preg­nant women. He ap­pealed to cit­i­zens to take every pre­cau­tion to pro­tect their lives.