Trinidad advertising boss among swine flu deaths
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, October 16, 2009 - The swine flu death count in the Caribbean continues to rise, with Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago reporting that more persons have died from the virus - one of them a well known businesswoman in the twin-island republic.
Although victims have not been identified by health authorities in Caribbean countries where the virus is claiming lives, the Trinidad Express newspaper reported that ad agency boss, Astra Da Costa, died yesterday of complications related to the virus. She was the third such death in the country.
Da Costa, the co-founder and executive chairman of Ample Advertising, reportedly complained of feeling unwell on September 27th, a day after she returned home from St Lucia, and was admitted to hospital. Test results confirmed on Wednesday she had the virus.
Da Costa went into cardiac arrest yesterday afternoon and died about one hour later.
The newspaper quoted her business partner, Alfred Aguiton, saying that the 62-year-old had a medical problem that caused delicate tissues in her lungs to harden and the swine flu virus exacerbated her condition.
Over in Barbados, Chief Medical Officer Dr Joy St John also confirmed a third swine flu-related death.
She said that, like the two before, the latest was an adult with underlying medical conditions.
There have been 147 confirmed cases in Barbados so far. But Dr St John emphasised that that number only reflected a fraction of those persons who were likely to have contracted the illness, since not all individuals with flu-like symptoms have been tested.
She reported that the Ministry of Health's surveillance system had detected a moderate decline in the number of persons presenting to health care facilities with flu-like symptoms over the past week, when compared to the surge of two weeks earlier.
Meantime, health authorities in Grenada have restricted access to the country's main hospital as among new measures implemented on the heels of an announcement earlier this week that three workers tested positive.
"It is not that the hospital is totally contaminated and we are closing it because of H1N1. We have to protect the patients in the institutions themselves and the more we curtail traffic it's easier to manage," said Health Minister Ann Peters.
A total of six persons have tested positive for swine flu in Grenada.
Comment