Portugal’s Health Department has confirmed that five people have died of swine flu in 24 hours.
The Minister for Health, Ana Jorge, also confirmed to the television news station TVI on Tuesday that the number of deaths from the A (H1N1) virus has reached 16 – in other words double the number of fatalities registered on Friday last week.
Ana Jorge said that one of the cases had died of “other causes” although the patient had contracted swine flu.
The Minister rejected the accusation that the government was trying to hide the real number of deaths and explained that since there were differences in the pathologies of each victim, it didn’t “make sense to divulge all of the deaths in the same way that deaths from all other pathologies”.
All of the deaths occurred in hospital and the minister stated that only the families held the information and this was “sufficient”.
The minister again stressed that, in the deaths of the foetuses reported last week, there was no proven relationship between them and the flu vaccine Pandemrix.
