Birmingham swine flu girl's death is first in England
A schoolgirl, thought to be six years old, has died at Birmingham Children’s Hospital after contracting the deadly swine flu virus.
If the child is found to have died as a result of H1N1 virus, she will be youngest person to lose their life to the condition in the UK.
The girl’s death is the first in England connected to the pandemic. Two people in Scotland have died after catching the virus.
It comes weeks after Birmingham Children’s Hospital revealed two members of staff, including a junior doctor, had contracted swine flu and were sent home from the wards to recover.
Alan Taman, Birmingham Children’s Hospital spokesman, said the girl had underlying health problems but was also being treated for swine flu when she died on Friday night.
The girl is believed to have been a pupil at Mayfield School, a specialist school in Birmingham which caters for children with learning difficulties.
There are now also five severely ill adults being treated in critical care units across the city for swine flu – two in the high dependency unit at Heartlands Hospital, in Bordesley Green, and three in critical care at City and Sandwell hospitals, in west Birmingham and the Black Country.
A further five adults are being treated in isolation in the hospitals for swine flu with less serious effects.
Infected numbers have continued to soar rapidly in the West Midlands to reach more than 2,100, of which 588 new cases were confirmed by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) last night.
An education official revealed the youngster was not connected to Welford Primary School, in Handsworth, which suffered the largest school outbreak in the country a month ago and affected around 100 pupils, staff and relatives.
“We can sadly confirm that a child died at Birmingham Children’s Hospital on Friday evening,” said Dr Helen Carter, public health consultant for NHS West Midlands health authority.
“The child has since tested positive for swine flu but had other serious underlying health conditions.
“Our thoughts are with the family of the patients at this very sad time.”
The region is still bearing the brunt of the largest outbreak in the UK with 2,104 confirmed cases and fears there are many more patients that have not presented themselves to doctors.
The total number of confirmed cases for swine flu in the UK has now reached 5,937.
A 73-year-old man from the Inverclyde area of Scotland died at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley on Saturday night. The unnamed man, who had serious underlying health conditions, had been treated in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit for the past 15 days.
Jacqui Flemming, aged 38, from Glasgow, was the first person in the UK to die after contracting swine flu two weeks ago.
Birmingham has suffered such large numbers of infections that swine flu directors for the region were told by the Department of Health to change the way the virus was being handled.
They are no longer carrying out swabs to diagnose the virus but GPs will prescribe drugs to those showing obvious symptoms of the illness after an examination.
Swine flu jabs are not expected to reach the UK until August but previous pandemics have left a legacy of a high death rate for three years after the start of an outbreak.
The virus is expected to strike more virulently in the autumn and winter.
