Singapore  – The Singapore government confirmed the city state’s first local case of H1N1 influenza in a 39-year-old Indonesian woman who had not been abroad recently, the Health Ministry said in a statement late Saturday.

The patient was the first close contact of an earlier confirmed case to be infected, bringing the total number of influenza H1N1 cases in Singapore to 15. The other 14 patients had been travelling abroad before showing influenza symptoms when back in Singapore.

The 39-year-old woman was the aunt of the 11th confirmed swine flu case in Singapore, an 18-year-old woman from the United States who arrived from New York on June 1.

The aunt fetched her niece at Singapore’s Changi airport and later accompanied her to a hospital when the young woman developed symptoms of influenza.

Singapore had reported its first case of H1N1 influenza on May 27.

To date, six patients had been discharged and nine remain in hospital, the health ministry said.

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan told Singaporeans to be mentally ready for the likely spread of H1N1 influenza throughout the community.

“We will try very hard to contain it but we must be mentally prepared that, at some stage, there will be community spread, not just in Singapore but all over the place,” the Sunday Times newspaper quoted the minister as saying. (dpa)