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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

South Africa : Swine flu kills city man

Via Independent Online :

" A CAPE Town man has died after contracting swine flu during a holiday in Turkey.

His wife, who asked that neither she nor her husband be named, said that at first she had thought that her husband, 58, had “a normal cold”.

The couple had been in Turkey when he fell ill, and he had taken “normal flu medicine”, she said yesterday.

“He was feeling cold, had a bit of a cough and a fever, but we didn’t read too much into it,” she said.

They were on a flight from Istanbul to Joburg on May 18 when his condition worsened: “By the time we landed in Joburg, he was so ill that he couldn’t even stand up. His chest was so tight that he struggled to breathe,” his wife said.

Rushed to a private medical centre in Joburg, he had surgery before being transferred to another hospital.

But while he seemed to be recovering, he developed another infection that complicated his condition and, his immune system seriously weakened, he died.

“His immune system was now just too weak and he succumbed to the infection,” his wife said.

She said that while her husband was being treated at the second hospital, a 27-year-old man had also died of swine flu-related complications. The hospital declined to confirm this or the details of her husband’s condition.

The woman said she wanted to use her tragic experience to warn others that flu symptoms should not be taken lightly."

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