A 19-year-old man has become the fourth person in the UK to die of swine flu and the first in London.

The teenager, from south London, who has not been identified, had serious underlying health problems, as had all those who have died in the UK so far. He tested positive for the H1N1 virus after his death at Lewisham hospital on Wednesday.

So far there have been four deaths among the nearly 7,500 lab-confirmed cases. On Thursday the health secretary Andy Burnham said projections showed that if cases continued to rise at the current rate there would be 100,000 new cases a day by the end of August.

The number of deaths will inevitably also rise, but extrapolation from the four deaths so far would not be statistically valid because the numbers are too few. A Department of Health spokesman said suggestions that there could be 40 deaths a day by the end of the summer were wrong.

Source/Full Story: The Guardian

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