KHUJAND, December 8. - Dalil Toshmatov, the head of the Sughd health directorate, told Asia-Plus that a woman on the fourth month of pregnancy was taken to the Sughd central regional hospital in Khujand on the night of December 5-6. “She was in serious heath condition and died Sunday (December 6),” Toshmatov said. “She is suspected of dying from swine flu, and therefore, her tests have been sent to the diagnostic laboratory in Dushanbe.”

According to Ms. Nasiba Ikromova, the deputy director of the Sughd Center for Sanitary and Epidemiologic Supervision, a 30-year-old M. Buranbayeva was hospitalized on suspicion of having contracted an acute double-sided pneumonia. “She also had an acute respiratory failure and unknown aetiology of influenza,” said Ikromova, “Sughd province does not have a laboratory for detecting new types of flu.”

In the meantime, the deputy head physician of the central regional hospital, Muhsin Oqilov, said that the women had been taken to the hospital’s resuscitation department already “with abnormality of essential functions.” “We are currently taking measures in the hospital to prevent spread of any type of flu,” Oqilov said.