The fact that a young, healthy person apparently died of the swine flu is also not surprising, Wooten said. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children under 5 infected with the virus have the highest rate of hospitalization, and young people between the ages of 5 and 24 have the second highest rate of hospitalization.The patient died in the emergency room and was never admitted, Wooten said. No further identifying information about the woman was released.
“We stated numerous times that we expect to see more cases, and we expect to see complications and death,” she said. The San Diego County woman had no other known medical problems when she became ill last weekend, Wooten said. The woman became severely ill Monday, when she visited a hospital emergency room, she said.
Wooten said that healthy people can get very sick from the swine flu because neither past illness nor vaccinations provide any immunity to the virus, which is new in humans.
