Authorities in have confirmed Colombia’s first lethal case of H1N1, or swine flu, of 2010, which took place in the central Tolima department.
The victim was a 46-year-old female school teacher from the municipality of Mariquita, 50 miles north-west of the country’s capital Bogota.
Tolima’s departmental Secretary of Health, Juan Carlos Basto, said that measures were currently being taken to safeguard against the spread of the disease, including a quarantine and medical treatment of people the woman recently had contact with, including her students.
Basto also said that doctors in the Tolima area are exercising increased vigilance for new cases of the illness, and asked that people be on the lookout for the flu’s symptoms, which include fever, nasal congestion, sneezing, sore throat, and breathing difficulties.
More than 200 Colombians died from H1N1 last year at the height of the flu epidemic.