PESHAWAR: A doctor who treated a woman suffering from swine flu in a private hospital is reported to have contracted the disease.

A hospital source said that the doctor and all the nurses who had come in contact with the Afghan patient had been tested, but only the doctor tested positive for the virus. He did not identify the doctor.

The patient, Latifa Bibi, 40, had been under treatment at the hospital in Hayatabad since November 3 and died on November 7. She was from Herat and was brought to the hospital with complaints of severe chest problems.

Chest specialist Dr Mukhtar Zaman Afridi told Dawn that the disease was transferred mainly through sneezing and coughing. The mortality rate, he said, was high among children and pregnant women. The Afghan woman was the first case of swine flu in the country.