A chronically ill 68 year-old died last Friday in Northern Ostrobothnia. A 73 year-old woman passed away on Saturday and a 74 year-old man died on Sunday. Both of them were cancer patients in Rovaniemi's hospital and all of them were over the age of 65, placing them firmly in the 'risk group' for the condition.
This brings the total of swine flu deaths in Finland to five after an eight year-old girl died in Tornio, also in Lapland, and 25 year-old woman passed away in Oulu City Hospital.
The outbreak is now reaching the far more densely populated southern Finland. Almost half of primary schools in Espoo, in the capital region, have reported cases of students being affected by the virus. The official tally of confirmed swine flu cases is now 1838, though the actual number is considered to be much higher as some people experience the virus in a mild form and do not, therefore, get themselves tested. Over 1000 of these cases have been in Rovaniemi.
Other countries in the region have also witnessed fatalities from the H1N1 virus. Sweden, with a population of eight million campared to Finland's 5 million, has confirmed 2771 cases of swine flu since May, according to the Blomberg News Agency. There have been three fatalities, all of them middle-aged people with underlying health problems. However, the Swedish government has claimed that the disease's cycle 'has only just begun' there.
Norway, population 4 million, has been hit far worse. There have been over 6400 confirmed cases and sixteen people have passed away due to the illness, two of which had no apparent underlying health problems. Russia has confirmed 4560 cases and nineteen deaths, most of them from pneumonia because the victims failed to seek medical attention. According to the Baltic Times, there have been 130 cases in Estonia, population 1.3 million, but no deaths so far.
