Swine flu outbreak

New Zealand's Healthline received a 40% increase in the number of calls after the Ministry of Health announced yesterday three people with swine flu had died.

Pregnant women who get swine flu are at least four times as likely to be hospitalized as other people with the virus, a new study says.

Blood oxygenation appears to be the key to surviving swine flu for patients suffering respiratory failure, new research shows.

While swine flu has slipped off the radar for many of us, it is still having a severe impact on some people and continues to circulate in the community, health professionals say.

When swine flu patient Terri Gordon-Davis (39) slipped into unconsciousness and was put on a ventilator to keep her alive, her husband was told she had a 25 per cent chance of surviving.

A 30-year-old woman died of swine flu in Dunedin Hospital on Sunday. The woman was admitted with flu-like symptoms on July 28 and did not have any pre-existing medical conditions before her admission.

The number of doctor consultations for influenza-like illnesses appears to have decreased slightly but it is too soon to determine whether this is the start of an ongoing fall in swine flu cases, the Ministry of Health says.

Swine flu is believed to have contributed to deaths in Otago and Southland in the past month, but final results will not be confirmed for "some weeks", coroner David Crerar says.