The Chinese mainland has reported a new death case of A/H1N1 flu, health authorities said Monday.

The new death case was found in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and the patient died Sunday, the Xinjiang Regional Health Department said in a statement Monday.

It was also the first A/H1N1-related death case in Xinjiang, the statement said, without providing further details about the patient.

Currently, Xinjiang has 153 confirmed patients who had tested positive for A/H1N1 flu and are being treated at hospital or being quarantined at home, the statement said.

The disease has earlier caused two deaths on the Chinese mainland -- an 18-year-old woman in Tibet who died on October 4, and a 43-year-old woman who died on October 16 in Tibet's neighboring province of Qinghai.

The Chinese mainland had reported 33,064 confirmed cases of the A/H1N1 flu by 3 PM last Friday, the Ministry of Health.

A total of 26,588 patients had recovered. Fourteen of 44 patients in serious conditions had been cured, the ministry said.

China is currently experiencing what experts called "a second round of A/H1N1 flu infection," as recent infections are more widespread and increasing rapidly. The Chinese mainland also reported two A/H1N1-related deaths last Friday, but in one case, a 72-year-old man, the first severe A/H1N1 flu patient in Beijing, died of chronic illnesses even after the flu was cured.

In another case, a seven-year-old boy in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province died of seasonal influenza and severe pneumonia. The A/H1N1 strain was found in the flu viruses that infected the first grader at Yingjun Primary School in Suihua City, but it was not yet known if the A/H1N1 flu was the main cause for the boy's death.

(Xinhua News Agency October 27, 2009)