La Paz, Aug 6 (EFE) A doctor has died from influenza A (H1N1), better known as swine flu, raising the death toll from the disease in Bolivia to 12, the health ministry said.
The physician was treated for more than three weeks but did not recover, health officials said Wednesday.
The doctor died in La Paz, but she caught the flu while treating patients at a hospital in the Andean city of Oruro, health ministry epidemiology director Eddy Martinez told EFE.
The physician was taken from Oruro to La Paz July 16 for treatment, Martinez said, adding that she might not have sought medical care in time and the case was under investigation.
“We have to see what happened, but it was obviously something that concerns us a lot because it deals with a health worker,” Martinez said.
Two other deaths in La Paz and Santa Cruz are being investigated to determine if they were due to influenza.
A total of 953 people have been infected with swine flu, according to the latest health ministry figures, with 652 of the cases reported in the eastern province of Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz has accounted for some 69 percent of the total swine flu cases.
rounak