Sydney - A 3-year-old boy with swine flu died in a Melbourne hospital Wednesday. Health authorities said he was the first child, and the ninth person with the virus, to die in Australia.
Most, if not all, of the nine deaths were of people who had serious underlying health problems before they contracted swine flu.
The boy is the second swine flu victim in Melbourne this week following the death of a 68-year-old man who had been receiving treatment for cancer.
"The man was being treated for a life-threatening cancer and was later diagnosed (with swine flu), Rosemary Lester, Victoria's acting chief health officer, said.
Lester reiterated that swine flu in almost all cases "is a mild illness, which many people recover from without any medical treatment."
There have been around 2,000 recorded cases of swine flu in Australia, more than half of them in and around Melbourne. Seven of the nine deaths have been in Melbourne.
