Honduras reports pregnant woman as 1st H1N1 flu death
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduras has confirmed its first H1N1 swine flu death, a 23-year-old pregnant woman, the health ministry said on Monday.
Minister Carlos Aguilar told a news conference the woman lived in a rural area in western Honduras. She died in mid-June but authorities only now confirmed the cause was the H1N1 flu which the World Health Organization has classified as a pandemic.
The largely poor Central American nation has reported 118 cases of the swine flu, most of them in the northwestern Sula valley area, home to most of the country's industry.
The flu first broke out in nearby Mexico in late April and has since spread to dozens of countries, killing 180 people and infecting nearly 45,000 people.
(Reporting by Gustavo Palencia, Editing by Sandra Maler)
