Prince George, B.C. - There have been 8 more severe cases of H1N1 in the Northern Health Region in the past week, bringing to 144 new severe cases in B.C. since the 10^th of November. While there have been 5 more deaths from the  H1N1 flu in the province, none of the deaths occurred within the Northern Health region.

 

The majority of lab-confirmed cases in B.C. have been mild or moderate in severity, with the patients either having already recovered or currently recovering.

 

In total, BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) has confirmed 755 severe H1N1 cases in British Columbia since April 2009, including:

o   304 in Fraser Health, including 12 deaths.

o   160 in Interior Health, including six deaths*.

o   33 in Northern Health.

o   203 in Vancouver Coastal Health, including seven deaths*.

o   55 on Vancouver Island, including five deaths.

 

To date, 30* laboratory-confirmed H1N1 cases in B.C. are reported to have died. Of those, 23 cases had underlying medical conditions while four had no underlying conditions. Investigation is still ongoing in the other three cases.

 

Also added to this week’s case count are two additional deaths – one in the Vancouver Coastal Health region and one in the Interior Health region. Both of these deaths occurred prior to last week, but were not reflected in the Nov. 10 information bulletin due to delays in health authority reporting. Investigations to determine if these cases had underlying health conditions are still ongoing (and are included in the totals above).