Pregnant Woman With Swine Flu Flown to Sweden for Treatment Named

A pregnant woman critically ill with swine flu, who was flown from Scotland to Sweden for specialist care, has been named as Sharon Pentleton, from Saltcoats in Ayrshire.

In a statement issued by NHS Ayrshire and Arran, her parents, Gerard and Annie Pentleton, said they were "focusing on caring for Sharon and would ask for privacy during this very difficult time for our family".

They added they hoped that the specialist treatment in Stockholm "will make her well. Sharon continues to receive the best possible treatment but is still gravely ill."

The health board said Pentleton was suffering from adult respiratory distress syndrome. Dr Paul Wilson, director of clinical care at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock, where she was first admitted a week ago, said her doctors at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm "feel she has a very, very good chance of recovery".

She was flown there after it emerged that the only center in the UK capable of providing the specialist treatment, in Leicester, had no spare bed in its five patient unit, partly because it is treating two other swine flu-related cases.

The procedure, known as extra corporeal membrane oxygenation, involves recirculating the patient's blood outside the body and adding oxygen artificially, in a machine similar to a heart and lung machine.

A spokesman from the Swedish hospital said her condition was now "stable but still critical".