This comes as recent US data show that apart from underlying health problems, obesity may increase the risk of swine flu complications and death.
A World Health Organization representative, Dr. Jacob Kool, said Pacific people are among the most vulnerable.
“People in the Pacific have a lot of risk factors, obesity and heart disease, but also diabetes and heart disease, they have some of the highest rates in the world here. There’s also a lot of asthma. In addition, we’ve seen with other pandemics that influenza often leads to a lot of severe illnesses in the Pacific.”
