Jerusalem - Israel Monday reported its first death of swine flu. A spokeswoman for the Health Ministry in Jerusalem confirmed the fatality was a 35-year-old man who died this week-end in Yoseftal hospital, in the southern Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat.
Laboratory tests confirmed he had the H1N1 virus.
Thus far, some 1,500 swine flu cases have been diagnosed in Israel, she told the German Press Agency dpa.
She gave no further details, but the Israeli who died in Eilat was said to have been a high risk case, because he was overweight, a smoker and had come down with pneumonia.
Most sufferers in Israel had thus far been in relatively good condition.
