A fifth person in Kent is thought to have contracted swine flu – on the day a global swine flu pandemic was declared.
The sufferer is believed to come from east Kent, and is thought to have travelled in infected areas.
The news comes as The World Health Organisation raised the alert to pandemic level for the first time in 41 years.
A total of 27,000 people world-wide now have the H1N1 virus, but fewer than one per cent have died from it.
Here in the UK, 822 people have had or are suffering from the virus, in Kent five people have fallen ill with it – it is believed the most recent sufferer is someone from the east of the county.
Although a pandemic may sound alarming, Declan O’Neill, the assistant director of public health in West Kent says we shouldn’t be worried: "This is a technical statement issued by the WHO as to what the spread of this illness is in the world. It does not mean that it is any more virulent or nasty or causing more deaths, it just means it has spread technically beyond the first region."