Anti-influenza virus medicine Tamiflu. (Philipp Guelland/AFP/Getty Images)
The 26-year-old West Australian man, the first person with swine flu to die in Australia, died in the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) on Friday, a day after he was first diagnosed with the A(H1N1) virus.
The man, from the remote Aboriginal community of Kiwirrkurra, near the Northern Territory border, had been transferred from Alice Springs Hospital to the RAH intensive care unit on Monday.
Ms Roxon said that while the Kiwirrkurra man had been suffering from the virus at the time of his death, it was unclear whether it was swine flu or another illness that killed him.
"Whilst this is the first recorded death in Australia of a person who had swine flu, it is unclear whether that was a direct or contributing cause to the death," Ms Roxon told reporters in Melbourne on Saturday.
"We do need to remind the community that for the vast majority of people who contract this flu over the coming months, it will be very mild."
Western Australia's Chief Health Officer Dr Tarun Weeramanthri offered the state government's sincere condolences to the man's family and the community of about 300 people in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands.
He said the WA Health Department would send a public health team to Kiwirrkurra early next week to assess the situation in the town, and to bring extra antiviral drugs and masks.
"Our current information is that there is no increase in the presentation of influenza-like illnesses to the local clinic but we want to confirm that and make an assessment of the situation in the community and the surrounding lands," Dr Weeramanthri said.
It was not known how the man contracted the virus, he said.
"We do not have a complete history of this man's movements over the past three weeks," he said.
"Public Health staff are attempting to gather this information."
Australia has now recorded 2,376 cases of swine flu, with the bulk of those in Ms Roxon's home state of Victoria.
