Madrid – A 20-year-old Moroccan woman has died at a Madrid hospital, becoming Spain's first swine flu fatality, the Gregorio Maranon hospital announced Tuesday.

The woman, who suffered from asthma, died at dawn of a respiratory illness provoked by the A(H1N1) flu, said a health ministry statement.

The woman, who was seven-months pregnant when she arrived at the hospital, had been receiving treatment for several days.

When her condition deteriorated Monday, doctors carried out a Caesarean delivery of the baby, who while fragile because of her premature birth, was in good health and unaffected by the virus, said the ministry statement.

Earlier Tuesday a hospital spokeswoman announced the death, and said Health Minister Trinidad Jimenz would give a press conference later in the day.

Tuesday's death in Spain was the fourth in Europe from swine flu, after three deaths in Britain, the most recent of which was on Monday.

Two other people are in a serious condition in Madrid hospitals, said the region's health chief Juan Jose Guemes. They are an eight-year-old child suffering from Angelman Syndrome, a rare genetic illness; and a 35-year-old woman with other medical complications.

A third patient is being treated in a hospital in Catalonia, northwest Spain, and is in a serious condition.

According to the latest health ministry figures, issued on Tuesday, 717 people have been infected with the A(H1N1) virus in Spain since it first appeared.

Spain was the first European country to confirm a case of the A(H1N1) virus.

The latest global figures issued by the World Health Organisation on Monday gave the number of recorded swine flu cases as 70,893 worldwide, with 311 deaths, since the outbreak started in late March.

Those figures showed that the number of cases had jumped by 11,000 since it issued the last world total on Friday.

But some countries are no longer keeping track of all cases recorded.

And US health officials have said that while their official figures record 27,717 cases including 127 deaths, the real figure was probably at least a million -- 50 times more than actually reported.

AFP / Expatica