By Invera Arjoon Monday, November 2 2009

OFFICIALS at the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) yesterday confirmed the woman who died last Friday, had the deadly Influenza A/H1N1 virus.

She is Trinidad and Tobago’s fifth swine flu-related death.

The victim was yesterday cremated at the Shore of Peace, Mosquito Creek, La Romaine.

Officials at the SWRHA told Newsday, the written report from the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre(CAREC), came back on Saturday and revealed that the 34-year-old woman had tested positive for H1N1.

“We received the report Saturday evening which confirms that she tested positive for the Influenza A/H1N1 and died from pneumonia brought on by the Swine Flu.”

Family members, together with friends and neighbours, yesterday bid an emotional farewell to the mother of a six- year-old girl.

The woman’s husband told Newsday he was afraid of being shunned by the public although he and his young daughter have tested negative for H1N1.

“I myself was not feeling well and decided to get tested together with my daughter but we both tested negative.”

His concerns were sparked by reports that another family in south Trinidad was ostracised after one of their relatives died from the H1N1 virus.

“While we all need to be cautious. People need to realise that if a certain time period has passed and no other family member is ill then there is no reason to be afraid,” relatives of the dead woman said, yesterday.

The woman began exhibiting flu-like symptoms on October 13, when she visited a private doctor who prescribed tablets and told her to drink lots of fluids, before sending her home.

When her condition worsened, the woman was taken to the San Fernando General Hospital on October 24, where she was immediately warded in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and was placed on a ventilator.

A source at the hospital said the woman had “a severe lung infection and pneumonia.”

She remained warded in the ICU until her death at about 1.15 am on Friday, hospital sources said.

There have been five H1N1-related deaths in Trinidad and Tobago and all five victims were from south Trinidad and had been warded at the San Fernando General Hospital.

Health Minister Jerry Narace could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Hospital sources also said yesterday, the policeman from the San Fernando Police Station, who had a tracheotomy procedure done on Thursday, has tested negative for H1N1.

Newsday also learnt that another female patient, warded on Saturday, is in the ICU and is suspected to be another swine flu case.

The two-year-old son of a former SWRHA official, who tested positive for H1N1, remains warded at the hospital’s ICU and is on a ventilator, while another young girl, who also tested positive, is warded at the hospital’s High Dependency Unit.