Tel Aviv man becomes Israel's 17th fatality in swine flu epidemic

Israel recorded its 17th swine-flu fatality over the weekend with the death of a 49-year-old Tel Avivian at Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot.

As in almost all cases of the disease in Israel, the man had a history of medical problems including chronic lung and heart ailments.

Nine days ago, while traveling to Tel Aviv from Eilat, he felt unwell and was admitted to Kaplan Hospital with complications from pneumonia. His condition deteriorated, he was diagnosed with swine flu and given the drug Tamiflu, which is regularly prescribed for the virus. But his condition worsened and he died early Saturday.

The Health Ministry said there was no certainty that the patient's swine flu infection caused his death, though they considered the case an additional fatal incidence of the disease.

In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde over the weekend, World Health Organization director general Margaret Chan said the disease was spreading at an unbelievable rate, with the severe form of the ailment affecting healthy young people.

The WHO issued a statement noting that, although the disease is expected to continue spreading around the world in the coming months, it has not been shown to have mutated into a more serious form. The WHO also noted that even though the virus was capable of causing serious illness and even death among healthy young people, the number of such cases remained small. The WHO called on countries in the northern hemisphere to prepare for a second wave of cases in the coming months.

Israel has already begun such preparations. At a meeting Thursday, directors of the country's hospitals discussed measures to increase staff at intensive care departments. Of the 17 Israeli fatalities attributed to the disease, only two did not have a history of health problems. Over the weekend it was reported that 2,185 people had died of the disease worldwide.