Sweden confirms 15 swine flu deaths

On Monday, Sweden’s Institute for Infections Disease Control (Smittskyddsinstitutet – SMI) published an accounting of all Swedes the agency has confirmed died from the A/H1N1 virus.

“We’re expecting more deaths, but hopefully fewer than we excepted at the beginning,” said SMI epidemiologist Andreas Heddini to the TT news agency, who added that the agency had expected more swine flu fatalities than have been reported thus far.

Among those who have died from the swine flu are a 3-year-old boy and 16-year-old boy, both of whom were members of a known risk group.

Another 3-year-old boy died at the weekend after being admitted last week to Astrid Lindgren’s Children’s Hospital in Solna north of Stockholm, bringing Sweden’s swine flu death tally to 15.

“He belonged to one of the risk groups and had a serious underlying condition,” said hospital spokesperson Klas Östman to the TT news agency.

Most of Sweden’s swine flu victims have been above 50-years-old and the majority also belonged to a known risk group.

Three of twelve males who have died didn’t belong to a group known to have a higher risk for contracting the disease.

Sweden’s first confirmed death from the A/H1N1 virus, a 37-year-old man from Uppsala, was recorded the week of August 24th.

Twelve of Sweden’s fifteen swine flu fatalities have occurred in the last month.

While the 3-year-olds were the youngest victims, Sweden’s oldest swine flu victim so far was a 71-year-old woman from Västernorrland in northern Sweden.

The deaths also have a wide geographic distribution, from Västernorrland in the north to Skåne in the south. The county with the most confirmed swine flu deaths is Stockholm, with four, followed by Uppsala, Örebro, and Västernorrland counties, each of which have had two fatalities attributed to the swine flu.