Medical authorities have announced on Thursday that the total number of confirmed deaths from swine flu in Bulgaria has risen to twelve.

This followed an announcement earlier on the same day which confirmed that another person, a citizen of Razgrad, had also died of complications caused by the virus.

Tests carried out by the National Reference Laboratory (NRL) have now confirmed that a 33-year-old woman who died in a Shumen hospital on November 8, had contracted swine flu.

Krasimira Yankova, who came from Radko Dimitrievo, a village near Shumen, died of double pneumonia on Sunday, becoming the 11th victim.

Initial rapid tests had failed to show evidence of swine flu, but the test samples sent to the NRL confirmed the presence of the A(H1N1) virus, according to Dr.Victor Minchev, Director of the Shumen general hospital.

Medical staff are now trying to track down anyone who may have been in contact with the victim.

Bulgaria's Chief Epidemiologist, Dr. Angel Kunchev, has stated that 634 cases of swine flu have been positively identified with a total of 1673 cases being tested.

Dr. Kunchev has explained that, from a medical point of view, there is no point in mass testing for the A(H1N1) flu, because 90% of the cases have that virus.

He has stated that the epidemic strain replaces all the others, and becomes the one that mainly circulates, and pointed out that, at the moment, a few tens of thousands in Bulgaria suffer from this flu virus.