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MELBOURNE: Australian authorities told parents not to panic over the spread of the H1N1 flu after the country recorded its first child death related to the virus.
Victoria state premier John Brumby described the death of a three-year-old boy who tested positive for A(H1N1) influenza as distressing, but emphasised that the virus was mild in most cases.
"(There's) no cause for alarm," Brumby said.
He said police and the coroner were investigating the case of the boy, who was reportedly found dead by his mother in their Melbourne home last Friday morning.
Authorities did not attribute the toddler's death to the H1N1 flu when they announced it late Wednesday, but also did not say he had pre-existing medical conditions, as has been the case in all other flu-linked deaths in the country.
It was the eighth fatality related to the disease in Australia, the worst-hit nation in the Asia-Pacific region with 4,370 cases.
Professor Robert Booy, an immunisation specialist at the Westmead Children's Hospital in Sydney, said the H1N1 flu was likely to kill twice as many children over the next 12 months as regular influenza.
Booy estimated 10 to 12 children could die from the virus, compared with five or six from regular influenza in a typical year, and said not all of those killed would have underlying medical conditions.
"It can occur in a healthy child, although most of them we believe will occur in a child with a problem, say a chronic heart problem, long-standing lung, kidney, liver (condition) or diabetes," he told ABC radio.
"The likelihood is with this virus we'll see more of the small number of severe (cases) than we do normally."
Victoria state's deputy chief health officer Rosemary Lester has urged parents to monitor their children and Brumby said they should implement basic hygiene measures.
"We are coming into flu season in the southern states and it's getting colder and wetter and families should take the precautions that we've been stressing, and that is basic hygiene and washing hands, cover your face when you cough and use tissues," he said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said authorities were using the best available medical advice to respond to the H1N1 flu.
"This is a very, very difficult disease and it's affecting many countries around the world," he told reporters.
"This is very, very difficult and we will continue to take measures as recommended to us by the medical authorities."
- AFP/yb
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