Swine flu causes 14 deaths in Costa Rica

At least 14 people in Costa Rica have been killed by the H1N1 swine flu virus since December.

Tico Times newspaper quoted Costa Rica health minister Fernando Llorca as saying that the H1N1 virus that appeared this time was the 2009 swine flu strain that killed hundreds of people in many countries around the world. However, the level of appearance and spread has not yet turned into a translation in this country.

Patients with swine flu are being treated at a hospital in Costa Rica.(Photo: Tico Times).

Costa Rica health officials urged the community to take measures to prevent disease, such as washing hands and using masks to prevent the virus from spreading. Costa Rica bought 950,000 doses of vaccine to prevent the H1N1 swine flu virus . People in this country will have access to the above vaccines from April 2016.

The president of Costa Rica's social insurance system - María del Rocío Sáenz said that there is no need to report the situation in the country.

However, the community must be very careful when contacting patients as well as coming to the hospital as soon as symptoms of the flu appear. The target groups are children, the elderly and pregnant women who are at high risk of infection.

Costa Rica health officials say one of the fatal patients is immigrants from Cuba, which is raising concerns that the H1N1 swine flu virus is likely to spread across regional borders.