The Yukon has had its first confirmed death from the H1N1 virus.
A young girl, who last week was sent to Vancouver for treatment of the H1N1 flu, died Sunday evening in hospital due to complications arising from the virus.
The girl’s name and age are not being released out of respect for the family, said Brendan Hanley, the Yukon’s medical officer of health.
The girl also had pneumonia, but that didn’t cause the school-age girl’s death, he said. She had underlying medical conditions that made her more vulnerable to the virus, he added.
It is important to keep this incident in perspective, said Hanley.
“For one thing, in 80 per cent of the deaths we have seen (related to H1N1 in the country), both the children and adults had underlying medical conditions,” he said.
“The other causes of death were rare.”
Over the weekend, there were two more people hospitalized as a result of the H1N1 flu, which, before the death of the young girl, brought the total number of hospitalizations to five.
One patient was treated and released and the other three are recovering.
The territory is particularly “anxious” about people with underlying medical conditions and they are being encouraged to get the vaccine, said Hanley.
As of Sunday, 8,342 people have lined up for the vaccination.
The territory has a supply of 24,000 vaccines, not the 55,000 initially announced by health officials.
The number is still enough to have 75 per cent of the population inoculated, said Hanley.
Contact Vivian Belik at
vivianb@yukon-news.com