PARIS (AFP) - – A group of British students has been quarantined in China after four tested positive for swine flu, officials said Saturday, as Georgia confirmed its first case and Singapore reported a first flu-related death.
The four confirmed to have the A(H1N1) virus have been hospitalised while the remaining 48 pupils in the group and their teachers had been quarantined in a hotel in Beijing, the British Council cultural organisation said in a statement.
In Singapore, authorities reported its first death linked to swine flu after a 49-year-old man who was diagnosed with the virus died in hospital.
"He died of a heart attack, contributed to by severe pneumonia with underlying influenza A infection," the ministry of health said in a statement.
The man, who suffered from diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol, was diagnosed with swine flu after he was admitted to a public hospital on Thursday, the statement said.
Georgia said it had confirmed its first case of the virus in a Georgian woman who had arrived from London.
"This is the first swine flu case in the country," the ex-Soviet republic's health minister, Alexander Kvitashvili, told a press conference.
"The patient was isolated and is under medical observation. Most important is that the case was revealed properly," the minister added.
In a separate incident in China, a British student from another group was quarantined along with a teacher for two days after she showed a heightened temperature when she arrived in Beijing this week, the British Council added.
The student showed no flu symptoms and was later allowed to rejoin the group, the statement said. She was part of a group of 362 students and teachers from 41 schools on a British Council-organised language course.
China has launched aggressive measures to try and detect swine flu, including temperature checks on foreign flights coming into the country.
In Italy, the start of the next school year could be put back to try to reduce the spread of swine flu.
"A possible postponement of the start of classes has not been ruled out," deputy Italian health minister Ferrucio Fazio was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency. No decision had yet been taken, he added.
In North Africa, two new cases were confirmed Saturday in Morocco, bringing to 28 the number who have come down with the virus in the kingdom, its health ministry in Rabat said.
One of the patients as a Moroccan woman aged 32 recently back from Britain, and the other was an 18-year-old American who had come over from Spain.
In the French region of Britanny, officials said a female American tourist was admitted to hospital in Avranches to be treated with the anti-viral Tamiflu after tests determined that she had the virus.
European Union Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou predicted Saturday that 60 million people across the European Union would need priority vaccination against swine flu, a report said.
The commissioner was speaking to Portuguese news agency Lusa while on a tour of member states within the 27-member bloc.
She said the numbers needing jabs in groups most at risk had been estimated at 60 million by the EU's executive arm, but warned: "There won't be vaccinations for everyone."
In Chile, the rate of infection from swine flu is declining, according to authorities in one of South America's worst affected countries.
Despite a death toll that has now risen to 40, health authorities in Santiago believe there will be a respite from the virus after a winter wave of infections.
In the last table released by the World Health Organisation on July 6, the UN agency had recorded 94,512 laboratory-confirmed cases in 136 countries and territories since April, including 429 deaths.
The WHO said Friday, however, it would stop giving figures on the numbers infected with A(H1N1) to allow countries to channel resources into close monitoring of the spread of the disease.
