The first US citizen to die of swine flu was a pregnant Texas teacher who went into a coma but managed to deliver a healthy girl just before the virus killed her.

Judy Trunnell, 33, was eight months pregnant when she got sick April 14, when the flu outbreak was just beginning to come to light in Mexico.

She was hospitalized five days later and put on life support because she couldn’t breathe, but soon slipped into a coma.

“By the time she came to see us, it was already too late,” said Texas epidemiologist Leonel Lopez.

Trunnell’s baby was delivered by C-section shortly before she died early Tuesday. A teacher of disabled children at Travis Elementary in Mercedes, Texas, she also had a four-year-old daughter.

“She was just a beautiful person, warm at heart,” her cousin, Mario Zamora, told WMAR-TV. “Those that knew her will always remember her.”

Texas officials had said she had “chronic underlying health conditions” but did not elaborate. Her family asked school officials not to discuss her condition.

“Any death is bad and this really reminds us that influenza can be a very serious infection,” said Dr. Richard Besser, acting head of the Centers for Disease Control.

He said pregnancy stresses a woman’s immune system, making it harder for her to fight off the flu virus.

While easing off on earlier dire predictions as the bug has turned out to be milder than first feared, Besser said the new strain of swine flu will infect millions across the world.

“At the rate the virus is spreading in other countries, I would be surprised if we don’t get to a level 6,” he said, referring to the World Health Organization’s 6-level pandemic scale.

The WHO warning is currently at 5 – meaning a global epidemic is imminent.

The CDC said there are 642 cases in 41 states, up from 403 in 38 states a day before. But Besser said there are another 850 sick Americans that are probably also suffering from the new flu.

Besser said 35 have been hospitalized with confirmed cases of swine flu, many of them teenagers.

Seven of the 35 “had known conditions that would put them at risk for further infection,” he said.

Worldwide, the WHO reports 1516 cases in 22 countries.