[continued from previous message] 
  
 The volcanic island has no airstrip, making getting medicines there 
 difficult. 
  
 However, merchant ships in the area are unlikely to have the necessary 
 drugs on board and a coastguard spokesman said there were no British 
 military vessels nearby at present. 
  
 Viruses have swept through the island before but Michael Swales, 
 chairman of the Tristan da Cunha association, said he could not 
 recall medicines becoming exhausted on previous occasions. 
  
 He said there was particular concern about the health of the elderly 
 and the very young. 
  
 Isolated 
  
 Resident Rosemary Glass told BBC Radio Cornwall that the island's 
 tiny four-bed hospital was full to overflowing last week, but some 
 patients had since gone home leaving three people in hospital. 
  
 "It makes people chesty and it's hard for them to breathe," Mrs 
 Glass said of the illness mainly affecting the elderly and children. 
  
 Tristan da Cunha is situated 2,800 km west of Cape Town, South 
 Africa, and is part of a small group of islands. 
  
 It was at one time on the main trading route between Europe and the 
 Indian Ocean, but the small community living there is now extremely 
 isolated. 
  
 The community of 275 people describe themselves as living in the 
 world's most isolated settlement. 
  
 The island is famous for a mass evacuation to Southampton in the 
 1960s after a volcano erupted. 
  
 The main island is about 38 sq miles (98 sq km) and the currency 
 is the British pound. 
  
  BBC MMVII 
  
  
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