Slovakia's first A-H1N1 flu fatality died of heart failure

People seem to be really worried about the new flu. In Slovakia the spread has been quite low by international standards. As a legacy from communist days Slovakia has a lot of hospital beds and trained staff. However it doesn't seem that it will all be necessary, immunisations start from the end of this month with improved and more tested vaccines than the ones given in some other EU countries.

Today the first death occured, but it involved a person with serious pre-existing health problems... So I am not sure this one counts..

The direct cause of death on November 6 of a woman who contracted the novel flu virus was heart failure. The spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, Zuzana Čižmáriková, provided this information based on the results of an autopsy conducted by the Health Care Supervision Office.

An hour after the 48-year-old woman was hospitalised in a Bratislava hospital, doctors had to resuscitate her because she suffered from serious arrhythmia. Her overall circulation failed. The woman was put into induced sleep and connected to respiratory equipment. Six hours later the critical situation repeated, but this time doctors failed to resuscitate her, which was confirmed by the autopsy as well.

Slovakia is well-prepared for a possible flu pandemic but the situation is now stable and the number of registered flu cases is not exceeding the norm, Health Minister Richard Raši told TASR on November 9.