Health authorities also confirmed Friday that a 40-year-old woman with A/H1N1 flu had died in Canada, the first such death in the country.

Andre Corriveau, chief medical officer of health in Alberta province, said that the woman had serious underlying medical conditions when she died on April 28. At that time doctors did not know she had H1N1 flu.

Brazil's health authorities confirmed two more cases of A/H1N1 flu on Friday, including the first contagion in the country, bringing the total number of infection cases to six.

On Saturday, an Australian woman tested positive for the new strain of flu, the first confirmed case in the country, Australian Associated Press quoted Queensland state's chief medical officer as saying.

Three Japanese were also confirmed to have been infected with the new A/H1N1 flu, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Saturday. They became the first confirmed cases of the new flu in Japan.

Fourteen new cases of A/H1N1 flu have been confirmed in Europe within the past 24 hours, health officials said Friday.

The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said seven new cases were reported Friday in Spain, three in France, two in Britain, and one each in Germany and the Netherlands.

The total number of confirmed cases of the A/H1N1 flu virus in the European Union and the European Free Trade Association blocs now stands at 156, the ECDC said in its daily update.

Israel on Friday confirmed the seventh H1N1 case in the country. The woman who was infected with the flu virus during her stay in the United States has recovered from the flu, according to local news service Ynet.

In Hong Kong, a Mexican A/H1N1 patient was discharged from a local hospital on Friday evening, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said.

Quarantine also ended on Friday at a local hotel where the patient, the first such case in Asia, had stayed briefly after arriving in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, in the Thai capital of Bangkok, health ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN, plus China, Japan and South Korea, concluded a special meeting on the flu outbreak.

The ministers pledged to raise drug stockpiles, share essential information and build rapid response teams to tackle what they called an "imminent health threat" to the region.

(Xinhua News Agency May 9, 2009)