TWO severe cases of swine ‘flu have been detected in Madrid and Catalunya.

Minister of health Trinidad Jiménez (pictured) reported yesterday that a 32-year-old man had been admitted to the Joan XXIII hospital in Tarragona, where he remains in intensive care.

Medics say his condition is serious, due to a respiratory problem that he had suffered prior to contracting the AH1N1 virus.

In Madrid, a pregnant woman is said to be in a serious condition in hospital with swine ‘flu.

Jiménez stresses that the central government’s health authority is watching both cases closely and following their developments.

She also commented that a 29-year-old summer camp instructor diagnosed with the virus had recently left hospital and returned to his home in Madrid.

He had been in charge of 40 children aged between six and 16 at the camp in the Urdaibai district of the province of Vizcaya, in the Basque Country.

But Jiménez says all the children have been tested and none were found to be affected.

Of the 60,000 cases of swine ‘flu worldwide, 541 are in Spain.

Although 263 people have died from the illness, at present there has only been one death in Europe, a man in Scotland.