With the death toll from the pandemic at 311 and total cases at 70,893, according to the WHO, more countries reported their first A(H1N1) infections and Indonesia planned to ask some people arriving there to wear masks.

Australian researchers said a vaccine could be ready in months. However, Danish officials reported that a patient showed resistance to Tamiflu, considered a key treatment for the virus by the World Health Organisation.

The Danish woman is no longer suffering from the illness, the Danish Institute of Serology said.

She had been in direct contact with a swine flu victim and was given a dosage of Tamiflu as a preventative measure, but she still contracted the virus.

That led doctors to give her another type of medication, Relenza, made by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

Nils Strandberg, the institute's director, said he was satisfied with methods used to monitor swine flu, adding that "the spontaneous mutation of a flu virus is not unusual".

Swiss drugs company Roche, which makes Tamiflu, said the patient's resistance was expected and likely an individual case.

"It doesn't mean the circulating virus is resistant to Tamiflu," said David Reddy, Roche's pandemic task force leader.

The worries at Wimbledon came with play intensifying as the tournament entered its second week. Organisers said some staff members had reported "flu-like" symptoms but the competition would continue as normal.

Club sources told AFP a handful of ball boys and girls were affected but nobody had been confirmed as having contracted the virus.

Venus Williams, the defending Wimbledon ladies' singles champion, said she was not worried.

"I just got a letter. I haven't read it. But I guess there's sicknesses all around. Hopefully the players won't get sick," the US tennis champ said.

Nearly 6,000 swine flu cases have been diagnosed in Britain, the Department of Health reported, and a hospital said Monday a nine-year-old girl had become the third person with the virus to die.

The girl had underlying health problems and it was unclear whether swine flu had contributed to her death, Birmingham Children's Hospital said.

Elsewhere, the virus first discovered in late March continued its spread.

According to the WHO figures released Monday, the United States showed the largest increase in cases, bringing the total to 27,717, including 127 deaths -- but that count may be massively low.

US health authorities said Friday that at least one million people in the United States had had swine flu.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention arrived at its figure based on computer models and surveys of communities known to have been hard hit.

Australian researchers said Monday a vaccine could be ready in months as the country, the worst-hit in Asia-Pacific, reported two more deaths linked to the virus, taking the total to six.

University of Queensland scientists said they had produced the country's first batch of a vaccine developed in the United States.

Researcher Anton Middelberg said the company behind the FluBlok vaccine -- Connecticut-based Protein Sciences Corporation -- planned to run clinical human trials in the United States, Mexico and Australia.

"It all depends on the regulatory process but I'd say we are months away from a swine flu vaccine," Middelberg said.

Highlighting the virus's spread, Nepal, the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, Kenya and Bosnia all reported their first cases Monday.

In Indonesia, the health minister said the government would ask all those arriving from swine flu-affected countries to wear masks for at least three days.

The presence of the virus was confirmed in Indonesia only last week and so far four of the eight known cases have been foreigners.

Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said the government would not enforce the precaution, which could damage the country's stuttering tourism industry.

"You can't expect people to wear masks when they're swimming," Supari said.

earlier related report
Girl with swine flu dies as cases jump in Britain: officials
A schoolgirl has become the third person with swine flu to die in Britain, officials said Monday, as the number of cases in the country jumped by more than 1,000.

The girl had underlying health problems, officials said, and it was unclear whether the A(H1N1) virus had contributed to her death.

"We can sadly confirm that a child died at Birmingham Children's Hospital on Friday evening," a spokeswoman for the NHS West Midlands said.

"The child has since tested positive for swine flu but had other serious underlying health conditions."

No other details about the case were released. The hospital initially said the girl was nine but subsequently said this was not the case, without being able to say definitely how old she was. The BBC reported she was six.

The Department of Health meanwhile announced a hike in the number of people who have contracted the virus -- up 1,604 since Friday, taking the total in Britain to 5,937.

The heavily populated West Midlands region in central England recorded the biggest jump in cases, rising from 588 to 2,104 -- more than a third of the total in Britain.

Officials have previously announced two people have died in Britain after contracting the virus.

A 73-year-old man who died in hospital in Paisley, central Scotland, late Saturday also had "serious underlying health problems", having been in intensive care for two weeks.

Earlier this month, another Scot, 38-year-old Jacqueline Fleming, became the first person with swine flu to die outside the Americas. She also had underlying health problems.

Swine flu fears swept the Wimbledon tennis championships on Monday, as a handful of ball boys and ball girls reported having "flu-like symptoms" and were asked to stay at home, although play continued.

"We are able to continue with the championships as normal. We shall of course be monitoring the situation closely," Ian Ritchie, the chief executive of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, said.

The chief medical officer said last week that Britain could see tens of thousands of cases every week within months and the strategy to cope with outbreaks is being changed.

The number of swine flu cases has reached 70,893 worldwide, with 311 deaths, since the virus was first discovered in late March, data released by the World Health Organisation on Monday showed.

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