The A/H1N1 flu was suspected to have killed a 32-year-old Indonesian male student studying in Malaysia, a local daily reported here on Thursday.
Should the outcome be positive, this would be the first fatality in Malaysia caused by the virus.
Sin Chew Daily said that the student had sought treatment at a private hospital Tuesday morning where he died two to three hours later when he was about to pick up his medicine.
Since he was suspected to have been infected with the flu virus, his body was brought to a government hospital for post-mortem, which took nine hours to complete.
The daily quoted a relative of the deceased as saying that he was sent to a hospital here when he suffered from breath difficulty.
Worrying that the dead might carry the flu virus, the hospital required every personnel working in the hospital to take antibiotics, but it had not quarantined those who were in contact with the deceased.
The Malaysian Health Ministry told Sin Chew Daily that it was waiting for the outcome of the sample examination from the Institute of Medical Research to be released.
According to the daily, the dead arrived in Malaysia for only one and a half month. He was studying in an institute located near the headquarters of the central bank of Malaysia here.
(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2009)
