According to nytimes.com, two more New York City residents - a 41-year-old woman from Queens neighbourhood and a 34-year-old man from Brooklyn neighbourhood - have died from swine flu, bringing the total number of city fatalities from the disease to four, the city's health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden, announced this afternoon.

The two people both had underlying medical conditions that raised their vulnerability to the swine flu virus, Dr. Frieden said. The two other city residents who died from swine flu this month also had underlying medical conditions.

Speaking at a news conference in Lower Manhattan neighbourhood, Dr. Frieden said that autopsies in the two new deaths were pending, but said that laboratory testing had confirmed swine flu in both victims.

As of yesterday morning, the federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed 6,764 swine flu cases in the United States, including 10 deaths, in 47 states and the District of Columbia. The three most recent New York City deaths were not included in those figures.

On the other hand, the number of dead in Mexico due to the virus has ascended from 83 to 85, and the number of those infected reaches 4,721, as the Secretary of Health informed today.

However, the increase in figures corresponds with "the samples we already had and that were being studied," assured the Secretary of Health.

Of the 32 Mexican states, the epidemic has concentrated in Mexico City, followed by Mexico State, San Luis Potosí (centre), Veracruz (east), Jalisco (west), and Hidalgo (centre).