A 23-month old child in Texas has become the first fatality from swine flu in the United States, Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Richard Besser said Wednesday.
"A child has died from the H1N1 virus," Besser told the CNN's "American Morning" program.
"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 said, "But given what we've seen in Mexico we have expected that we would see more severe infections and that we would see deaths."
"Flu is a very serious disease, and we're treating this outbreak very seriously," Besser also said on the CBS' Early Show, "We're taking aggressive action to try and control this."
"It's very important that people take their concern and channel it into action," Besser said, urging Americans again to wash their hands often and cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing.
"I don't think it (the reported death in Texas) indicates any change in the strain," he added, "We see with any flu virus a spectrum of disease symptoms."
The child is the first person to die of swine flu outside of Mexico where the virus has caused more than 159 deaths and roughly 2,500 illnesses.
The official gave no other details on the case. U.S. officials have confirmed 64 cases of swine flu. Most of them have been relatively mild, with only a handful of sufferers requiring hospitalization.
So far, the World Health Organization says at least 112 human swine flu cases have been confirmed worldwide.
(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2009)
