A man and two children - all believed to have had "underlying health issues" - have died after contracting swine flu, health officials have said.

The latest two are a man and a child from the Kirklees area of West Yorkshire, a spokeswoman for NHS Yorkshire and the Humber said.

Health officials said they could not confirm whether swine flu was the cause of death in either case.

They bring the total number of deaths of people with swine flu in the UK to seven.

At the weekend, a nine-year-old child from south London died.

The youngster is the second person in the capital to die after a 19-year-old man, also from south London and with serious underlying health problems, died last week.

A further three people with swine flu have died in the UK and all had underlying health problems.

Jacqui Fleming, 38, of Glasgow, was the first after contracting the virus last month, two weeks after her son, Jack, was born 11 weeks prematurely. Jack died later but had not contracted the virus.

The second victim was a 73-year-old man from the Inverclyde area of Scotland.

The youngest UK victim was six-year-old Sameerah Ahmad. She was born with a rare life-threatening disease and died at Birmingham's Children's Hospital after contracting swine flu, although it is unclear if it contributed to her death.

A spokesman for NHS London said: "A second person in London who had tested positive with swine flu has died. The nine-year-old child from south London had serious underlying health problems.

"No further details will be released to protect patient confidentiality. We would ask the media to respect the family's privacy at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with them as they come to terms with their loss."

Last week, there were warnings that the number of cases of swine flu could soar to 100,000 a day by the end of next month. Health chiefs said the UK had moved past the stage of containing the outbreak and into the "treatment phase".

© Independent Television News Limited 2009. All rights reserved.