A 21-year-old man from Laval is the latest victim of the deadly swine flu.

He died Wednesday at Cite-de-la-Sante hospital because of the flu, and complications from an existing medical condition.

He is the second person to die in Laval, and the 21st death since the second wave of the flu began at the end of August.

Health officials in Quebec say nearly all of the people killed after contracting the H1N1 virus have had other health problems.

Meanwhile close to 1,000 people in Quebec have been hospitalized with the flu, and most of them are children.

"Fifty-eight percent of hospitalized cases were 19 and under," said provincial Health Director Alain Poirier.

Emergency rooms throughout the province are seeing a steady increase in the number of patients with swine flu, and more patients are being admitted, sometimes into intensive care.

To date, one million Quebecers have received the swine flu vaccine.

Now health authorities are working to bus schoolchildren to vaccination centres.

Health officials believe the virus is expected to reach its peak in Quebec in the next two or three weeks.