JOHANNESBURG, 18 August 2009 (IRIN) - With South Africa's sixth H1N1 death confirmed on Monday, the government has issued a warning to people living with HIV, as well as other chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes, to seek medical treatment early if they have even mild symptoms of the new influenza, also known as swine flu.

Dr Lucille Blumberg, deputy head of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), told IRIN/PlusNews that one HIV-positive individual was already known to have died from swine flu, but health officials were still largely in the dark about what H1N1 meant for people living with HIV. South Africa has an adult HIV prevalence of 18 percent, one of the highest in the world.

In May, an advisory by the World Health Organization (WHO) highlighted the lack of data on how HIV-positive people might be affected by the virus, which had been discovered just one month before in Mexico. WHO based much of its advice on what was already known about HIV and seasonal flu.

"We know that with typical influenza, people living with HIV do tend to have more complications and obviously that's a concern," said Blumberg. According to WHO, these complications often mean longer hospital stays and higher rates of mortality.

Last week, WHO regional director Luis Gomes Sambo lamented a US$31 million funding shortfall in the organization's swine flu response for Africa, said a report by French news agency Agence France-Presse. He also warned that countries such as South Africa, which are already shouldering high disease burdens of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV, were most vulnerable to epidemics like the H1N1 virus.

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