NEW ZEALAND - NEW Zealand health officials confirmed the country's first three A(H1N1) flu-related deaths on Saturday - two discovered only after autopsies on the victims.

Chief Coroner, Judge Neil MacLean, said preliminary tests on two male victims indicated 'a high degree of probability' that swine flu caused the deaths.

'(We) can't say 100 per cent, but (the probability is) so high that it's unlikely that will change,' he told reporters.

A 19-year-old man with the virus from the North Island city of Hamilton, who died on June 28 in a hospital, apparently had no other medical conditions.

Mr MacLean said a 42-year-old man with swine flu from the southern city of Christchurch who died on Thursday had underlying health problems.

Health officials are testing for swine flu during autopsies of people who died of unclear reasons.

The third victim, a 10-year-old girl who died on Saturday in the capital, Wellington, tested positive for swine flu and also had other medical issues, health officials said.

'For most New Zealanders, swine flu will be a mild illness but, in some instances, the infection can cause more severe illness and in a few tragic instances, death,' Doctor Mark Jacobs, director of public health, said in a statement.

New Zealand has now confirmed 945 cases of the virus. The county is now in the middle of the regular flu season because it's winter.

According to the latest report on Friday from the UN's World Health Organization (WHO), there have been 89,921 swine flu cases worldwide and 382 deaths. The WHO report said nine of those deaths have been in Australia, three in Thailand and one in the Philippines. -- AP