Sweden registers first Nordic death from new coronavirus

Sweden on Wednesday reported its first death from the new coronavirus, health officials said, the first person in the Nordic region to die from the outbreak sweeping the globe.

The victim was an elderly patient with an underlying illness being treated in the intensive care unit of a hospital in the capital, the Region Stockholm health authority said in a statement.

Neither the exact age nor the gender of the victim were disclosed.

"An elderly patient who was being treated in the ICU -- and was diagnosed with COVID-19 while there -- has died," it said.

Sweden, a country of around 10 million people, has registered 461 cases of the new coronavirus, with the number rising significantly in the past few days.

Initially, most of the people infected with the virus in the five Nordic countries -- Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden -- were infected during recent ski holidays in Italy and Austria, or were in close contact with those infected there.

As a result, most of those who have tested positive have been relatively young and healthy.

But authorities in the Nordics have said there are now signs the illness has begun to spread to the broader community.

"When we have this many cases, and we are starting to get a spread to older patients, we know from other countries that this is inevitable," Anders Tegnell, epidemiologist at the Public Health Agency of Sweden, told news agency TT.