An 11 year-old child died Monday night from the swine flu virus. The young child died as a consequence of a “chronic disease” revealed the Ministry of Health. The child is the twelfth victim of the H1N1 virus in Spain, and the first under age.

The swine flu virus which was declared a pandemic at the beginning of June, has spread the globe like wildfire, affecting around 180,000 people and leaving over 1,500 dead. The deadly swine flu virus is said to potentially affect around 2 billion people, according to the World Health Organization.

According to the latest figures revealed by the Ministry of Health on Friday, last week saw a total of 14,391 new cases of swine flu, after the previous week saw 12,270 cases.

According to the Ministry, last week there was a rate of 32.89 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, which “is lower than estimates in other countries, such as Belgium (73 cases per 100,000 inhabitants), the United Kingdom (48.2 cases per 100,000 inhabitants) y France (37 cases per 100,000 inhabitants).

The Ministry of Health in Spain, had changed the method of publishing figures on the number of individuals affected by the swine flu virus to inform merely of the amount of cases per 100,000 inhabitants, instead of the total number of cases, following recommendations of the World Health Organization.