The National Institute for Communicable Diseases on Tuesday confirmed the country's third H1N1 influenza, popularly known as swine flu, death.

"There has (sic) been three swine flu deaths in the country. I am not going to name patients but the third case was the man from Western Cape who died last week," said NICD's Dr Lucille Blumberg.

The country's first H1N1 victim was 22-year-old Stellenbosch University student Ruan Muller which was reported early last week.

The second swine flu death was of a 15-year-old teenager from Bloemfontein which was only confirmed on Saturday. More than 1000 infections have been confirmed in the country.

Read more about swine flu in our special report!