Authorities are not disclosing if Lithuanians stricken by the outbreak are infected with swine flu or not.

VILNIUS — Lithuania had its first death from the swine flu virus Wednesday after a 14-year old boy died in Kaunas, the Minister of Health, Algis Čaplikas, said at a press conference that evening.

The boy, whose name has not yet been released, died on the day that the Ministry of Health named five municipalities flu epidemic areas. Kaunas was not one of the municipalities singled out.

The boy died at Kaunas University of Medicine Children’s Hospital after five days of complications with the flu and a bacterial infection. The type of bacteria has not yet been released.

Deputy Health Minister Artūras Skikas downplayed fears of the flu epidemic.

“Seasonal flu is the same as a pandemic, because it covers the whole world,” Skikas said at the press conference Wednesday. “A flu clinic is the same treatment, the same procedures, the same.”

The boy died only hours after Ieva Paulauskienė, an adviser to the minister of health declined to say whether the epidemic was caused by the A/H1N1 strain. She said that the ministry has stopped doing research to distinguish between the viruses.

“We are not calling this swine flu,” Paulauskienė told Baltic Reports. “We are not doing this research anymore … we are thinking it may be the same.”

Paulauskienė also denied that the Lithuanian military school cadets who were afflicted with A/H1N1 could have been the source of the outbreak. Instead, she said that it was “caused by influence from foreign countries,” specifically Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.

No alert given to EU, outbreak downplayed by Lithuania

Despite the escalating cases of flu, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, an agency within the European Union that tracks the spread of infectious diseases, has not updated their information on Lithuania for two weeks.

Paulauskienė declined to say anything further than “it’s very strange because we have the ways and rules of how to do that.” She then said that Lithuania’s Communicable Disease and AIDS Center is responsible for updating those numbers. Saulius Čeplinskas, the Communicable Disease and AIDS Center director, confirmed that the center was responsible for updating those numbers and does so “at their request.”

Isabelle Hubert, a spokesperson for the ECDC told Baltic Reports that “hospitalized cases data for the EU and European Free Trade Association countries correspond to the Ministry of Health or surveillance center websites.”

Paulauskienė said that the ministry expected another shipment of A/H1N1 vaccines to Lithuania in December.

According to a statement released by the Ministry, Roche Laboratories, the makers of Tamiflu, will send new shipments of the anti-viral medication to Lithuania soon. Pharmacies have reportedly been running low or completely out of flu medications in recent days.

Five Lithuanian municipalities — Vilnius, Ukmergė, Utena, Ignalina, and Marijampolė — have been declared flu epidemic area by the country’s Ministry of Health Wednesday morning. Each of these areas have surpassed the definition of an epidemic, which is 100 people infected per 10,000.