Obama is to lead commemorations attended by thousands of Americans at Saturday's ceremony above Omaha Beach, where more than 9,000 US troops fought and died in June 1944.

Already two Americans who are in Normandy for the anniversary have been taken ill with swine flu.

"The cases aren't linked, but they show the need for the state to provide all doctors with adequate protection masks," Antoine Leveneur, president of the regional doctors' association in Basse-Normandie, told AFP in Caen.

"We're going to see an influx of several thousand American tourists with the landings ceremonies at at time when the virus is spreading, making this provision necessary," he said, after confirming the second case.

"He's a 21-year-old student who was staying at a guesthouse with 22 others," he said.

The group was confined for 24 hours and treated with the antiviral Tamiflu, while the student was admitted to Caen university hospital where he was confirmed on Wednesday to be infected with the A(H1N1) virus, Laveneur said.

The earlier swine flu case in Caen involved a 54-year-old US official who had come from the United States to help prepare for Obama's visit.

Laveneur had no information about her condition, six days after she was admitted to hospital.

Swine flu has now spread to 66 countries with 19,273 people known to have been infected since the disease was first uncovered in Mexico in April, data from the World Health Organization showed Wednesday.

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