The man, from south London, had serious underlying health problems and was in Lewisham Hospital. Tests undertaken after his death showed he had the flu.

He is the fourth person with swine flu to die in the UK. Dr Simon Tanner, from NHS London, said London has seen a “spike” in flu cases in the past week.

London is the second-worst affected area, with more than 1,900 cases.

The global body says 12,720 new cases have been reported since Wednesday — about half of them in the United States.

WHO says Britain, Chile, Mexico, Philippines also reported large numbers of new cases.

Health experts say the number of cases reported to WHO is far below the figure of actual infections because many are mild and never diagnosed.

WHO is working on mathematical models to estimate the real number of infections.

According to the agency’s swine flu update Friday, the number of deaths increased by 50 to 382.

Most of the deaths occurred in the US.

World Health Organization head Margaret Chan added that the holding of the meeting in Cancun showed confidence in Mexico, which has been hard hit.

The WHO says most H1N1 cases are mild, with many people recovering unaided.

As the summit opened, the UK alone was projecting more than 100,000 new cases of H1N1 a day by the end of the summer.

As the peak of the flu season approaches in South America, some areas have declared a public health emergency.

Full Story

Talk of swine flu parties has emerged on Internet forums. The idea is that exposing a child to the H1N1 virus while it remains relatively mild will give the child immunity if the virus returns in a more virulent form later on.

The idea is an extension of chicken pox and measles parties that were once a popular way of exposing children to those diseases so that they might acquire resistance to subsequent infections.

But health officials have been quick to condemn the idea. Speaking at a conference, Dr Richard Jarvis, chairman of the British Medical Association’s public health committee, said “I have heard of reports of people throwing swine flu parties. I don’t think it is a good idea.

“I would not want it myself. It is quite a mild virus, but people still get ill and there is a risk of mortality.”

Last month, Richard Besser, the acting head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also warned against deliberately exposing people to the virus.

While it’s not clear if any swine flu parties have been held, Justine Roberts, the founder of Web site mumsnet, today told BBC Radio 4 that some people have been discussing the idea.

“We have heard of people saying ‘can we come round to your house when you get it?” she said.

“There’s definitely a prevailing view that it might be better to get it now and some people are not despairing if there is a case in their school.”

Flu epidemics often come in waves and there are fears that a more virulent form of H1N1 may strike in the fall. That happened with the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918.

Researchers at George Washington University in Washington DC have studied the 1918 pandemic and have found that in areas where there were more cases during the first wave of Spanish flu, there were fewer deaths during its second wave, in the fall of that year.

The suggestion is that exposure to the first wave of the flu conferred immunity to its second wave.

But H1N1 is still very much an unknown quantity. Experts warn that little is known about the virus and that actively encouraging its spread could risk the health of those who are most vulnerable.

While the symptoms associated with swine flu are not usually life threatening among people in good health, it can be deadly for elderly people or those with other medical conditions.

The latest figures from the World Health Organization show there have now been 311 confirmed deaths around the world from the H1N1 virus first identified in Mexico this spring, and just over 70,000 infections in 113 countries.

Are people seriously that dumb?

Seven children and three adults at a summer camp in Minnesota for kids with muscular dystrophy contracted swine flu this month, contributing to the decision by the national Muscular Dystrophy Association to cancel dozens of its remaining summer camps across the country.

The national MDA also reported swine flu cases at camps in Utah and Pennsylvania. None was fatal.

The MDA of Minnesota wrapped up the one-week session at Camp Courage on Maple Lake, about 50 miles west of the Twin Cities, on June 12.

The Minnesota camp ran the full week because “the cases didn’t show up until the camp was complete,” MDA national spokesman Bob Mackle said Saturday. “None of the cases in Minnesota required hospitalization. They weren’t severe.”

All 10 people who fell ill — among them three adult MDA staff members or volunteers — have recovered, Mackle said.

Golden Valley-based Courage Center, the rehabilitation organization that operates Camp Courage and a similar facility on Lake George in northern Minnesota, “has no intention of closing either of our camps” because of the outbreak, spokeswoman Mary Small said Saturday night.

Small said that four of the 10 who fell ill were in the same cabin. She said camp officials were notified of the outbreak three days after the MDA group left, and the entire camp was immediately “sanitized,” a disinfecting process that it already does on a regular basis. Other groups that use the facility were notified of the outbreak, but there were no cancellations, she said.

The state Health Department confirmed the “cluster of cases” coming from the MDA camp. “We are investigating it with the camp,” said John Linc Stine, assistant commissioner for health protection.

The boy was admitted to a private hospital on Monday morning and discharged after treatment, said health ministry spokesman Fidel Hadebe.

Laboratory tests came back positive on Thursday for the H1N1 virus.

While there have been nearly 30 cases of swine flu in Egypt and several in Morocco, this is the first known case of the virus in sub-Saharan Africa.

Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a pandemic.

“The patient was kept in isolation and discharged after a few days in hospital. He is well and recovering in isolation at home,” said Mr Hadebe in a statement.

Health officials have warned that countries in the southern hemisphere – which includes the bulk of sub-Saharan Africa – could see a leap in cases of H1N1 because they are currently heading into winter and the height of flu season.

Northern hemisphere countries are bracing for a surge in swine flu when their winter begins later this year.

Correspondents say South Africa has good medical facilities well-equipped to deal with any swine flu epidemic.

Swine flu has infected some 40,000 people in more than 70 countries and killed 167 since detected in Mexico in April, says the WHO.

The two boys showed flu symptoms on arrival, were given treatment and were recovering, Health Minister Abdullah al-Qahtani said in comments on state-run Qatar News Agency.

The first case was a two-year-old boy from New Zealand who arrived on Saturday with his family from Austria and the second was a two-and-a-half-year old American boy who came from New York on Sunday via Bangladesh, the minister said.

Flu cases have been detected in four other Gulf Arab states — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain.

The number of cases of the flu, known as the H1N1 virus, has been climbing in Argentina and Chile in recent days as winter approaches in the Southern Hemisphere.

Argentine officials said they did not know exactly how the baby was infected with the virus, which contains genetic material from bird, swine and human flu viruses.

The World Health Organization said Monday that 76 countries had reported a total of 35,928 cases of the virus, with 163 deaths.