Please click Specials: A/H1N1 flu in China

A 20-year-old woman died of A/H1N1 flu Friday (Nov 20), the first patient to die of the disease in Shenzhen, according to the city's commission of health, population and family planning.

The woman, who cannot be identified, died at about 3 p.m. Friday. She was diagnosed with serious pneumonia but a specialist team later confirmed she had died of A/H1N1, according to Zhou Boping, head of the Shenzhen No. 3 People's Hospital and leader of the specialist team.

"The woman, who sold clothes in Luohu District, had symptoms of fever and coughing several days ago and took some medicine but did not feel any better. She came to Luohu District People's Hospital on Thursday, but died the next day", said Zhou.

So far there were two patients on life-support machines.

An 11-year-old boy in Bao'an District is still being treated at Shenzhen Children's Hospital. He was in coma after four days of treatment, said Zhou.

A 6-year-old boy from Longgang District was recovering in the ICU at Shenzhen Children's Hospital, and his condition was not life-threatening, said Zhou.

A total of 1,136 people had been diagnosed with the flu by Friday, Cheng Jingquan, director of the city's center for disease control and prevention (CDC), said.

A total of 33 cases had been diagnosed in city schools and two in companies as of Friday, said Cheng.

So far Guangdong Province had delivered 280,000 doses of vaccine to Shenzhen, of which 223,000 had already been handed over to districts.

About 77,000 people had already been inoculated as of Friday, 32,638 of whom were students, he said.

Among these, 67 people had suffered from side effects but none was serious, Cheng said.

The number of flu patients in the city was increasing steadily and experts expect more than 1 million people to contract the disease, said committee vice director, Zhang Dan.

The health authority had designated 13 hospitals to admit patients with serious symptoms and initiated a reporting mechanism for hospitals.