MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina reports 44 deaths; highest A/H1N1 virus flu mortality rate

In some hospitals 40% of health care workers are not turning up for work

Argentine health officials reported 17 more H1N1 flu deaths, bringing the total to at least 44 in the country hardest hit by the A/H1N1 virus in the southern hemisphere. Health Minister Juan Manzur said that “between 43 and 44 deaths” linked to the virus had been confirmed, a significant jump from the 26 that had been reported by the ministry on Friday.

However no new deaths were reported on Thursday but Manzur admitted that several more fatal cases are awaiting confirmation to see if they are related to the virus.

Argentina has now surpassed Canada as the country with the third highest A/H1N1 flu death toll, following the United States with 127 deaths reported and Mexico, where the epidemic was first discovered earlier this year, with 116 deaths.

“The situation is serious, it's difficult”, admitted Manzur who took the post this week following the resignation of his predecessor, Graciela Ocaña, over “policy” discrepancies with President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner administration.

“We are contending with a trend that is still on the rise” he said, referring to what is expected to be a further spread of seasonal and A/H1N1 flu in the Southern hemisphere winter.

Several Argentine provinces have declared a “sanitary emergency” and winter school holidays have been advanced as of this week until August. Normally the winter break is two weeks. University will remain closed beginning next Monday.

We are facing a grave problem here,” said Dr. Jorge Yabkowski, the president of the Federation of Health Professionals of Argentina. “Hospitals here have very limited capacity to deal with this epidemic”.

On Wednesday, emergency rooms that normally receive 200 patients had to attend to 1,000, and in Buenos Aires Province the minister of health, Claudio Zin, said about 40 percent of health care workers were not showing up, either because they were ill or were concerned about catching the virus. The province had called up retired doctors and medical students to help out.

Late Wednesday Manzur said in a statement that the government would free up more than 260 million US dollars to combat the flu

Neighbouring Chile is also suffering from a high incidence of the A/H1N1 virus with at least 14 deaths and 7.342 confirmed cases. This week Paraguay and Uruguay reported their first flu deaths.

The World Health Organisation declared a global flu pandemic in June and in its latest July release said 332 people have died from it and 77,201 people worldwide have caught the virus.

Health experts are following the situation closely in the southern hemisphere, as events here could be an anticipation of what is to come north of the equator when winter hits North America, Europe and most of Asia at the end of the year.

The epidemic in Argentina is noteworthy because of its apparent high mortality rate compared to other countries stricken with the virus. With 1,587 confirmed cases and 44 deaths, one in every 37 confirmed swine flu cases - 2.71% - in Argentina has been fatal.

In Mexico, where the epidemic was discovered, 116 people have died out of a total 8,613 confirmed cases, a mortality rate of 1.35%, about half as high.

By contrast, the United States has 127 confirmed deaths out of 27,717 cases, a mortality rate of 0.46% for known cases, and the death rate could be far lower as US health officials believe one million Americans have contracted the A/H1N1 virus.