The death toll caused by the A/H1N1 flu in Chile reached 26, the country's Public Health Agency said on Sunday.

The latest death case was a 48-year-old man identified as Omar Bernardino Uribe Reyes, a resident in the southern city of Puerto Montt, said a statement of the agency.

Uribe had been hospitalized for 10 days at a clinic in Chile's capital after a medical center in Los Lagos, some 700 km south of Santiago, diagnosed his illness.

As of Saturday, 9,549 people have been infected with the A/H1N1 virus, 406 of them in serious condition, said the agency.

It also said that Chile has seen a sharp increase in the infection number in kids aged under five, which now accounted for some 14 percent of the total confirmed cases.

The most vulnerable age was those aged five to 19, accounting for half of the total, according to the agency.

(Xinhua News Agency July 13, 2009)