Pregnancy means more swine flu risk

10th July 2009

PREGNANT women have been urged to take special precautions against swine flu.

Information sent on Wednesday from the office of Queensland's chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young revealed pregnant women were among the most vulnerable to the potentially deadly virus.

Central Queensland's confirmed cases of the flu yesterday grew to 28, up three cases from Tuesday.

But a Queensland Health spokesperson said they could not break down where the particular cases stemmed from in the CQ health district, which stretches from Rockhampton south to Gladstone and west to Emerald and Longreach and includes Callide Dawson. The spokesperson said Queensland Health had released more case details before the state's suspected swine flu cases passed 30,000 and confirmed cases rose about 500.

Dr Young yesterday said since the state had moved into the “protect” phase of swine flu, a focus was on pregnant women as one of the vulnerable groups.

“While pregnant women do not appear to have a higher risk of contracting swine flu, they do have a higher risk of complications such as pneumonia and early labour from this and any type of flu,” she said.

“Studies conducted on previous pandemics in the early and mid-1900s suggest there can be adverse outcomes in pregnancy, particularly if pneumonia develops.

“Since H1N1 Influenza 09 (Human Swine Influenza) is a novel virus, we cannot guarantee there will not be unforeseen adverse effects.”

Dr Young said pregnant women should be vaccinated against normal seasonal flu.