Health officials are considering abandoning daily updates on the number of UK swine flu cases as the disease takes hold and ways of diagnosing and confirming it change.

As the number of cases confirmed by laboratory tests swept past 6,000, the government's Health Protection Agency confirmed that the way cases are recorded and reported may be changed, although ministers would have to give final approval.

Three people in the UK have died after catching swine flu and collating figures is proving time-consuming, given that confirmation of cases in hotspots such as London, the West Midlands and parts of Scotland is now being done by doctors, with only a sample of their patients having the results confirmed in the laboratory.

Health authorities are keen to avoid any suggestion they are withholding information and other countries already update their swine flu numbers less frequently, for instance weekly or every other day.

It is also believed that swine flu has spread far more widely than official figures suggest, given that many people are thought to have such mild symptoms they are not even bothering to contact their doctors and that others are being treated in surgeries without being regarded as suspected swine flu cases.

Among the options being considered is weekly updates on the spread of the disease, with cases reported as a number per 100,000 of the UK population. This is how traditional flu cases are reported each winter, and with the NHS preparing for tens of thousands of swine flu cases a week by the end of this year, a similar system would be understood by public health experts.

But the government and other agencies recognise they may need other ways of regularly informing the public and no decisions have yet been made.

A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said: "Throughout winter we routinely provide information from the various surveillance systems that monitor seasonal flu and because of the current outbreak of swine flu, these systems are continuing at full pace throughout the summer.

"When laboratory testing is no longer being used widely to diagnose swine flu, we will ensure that information from these ongoing surveillance systems and other important epidemiological data are regularly published, enabling the public and health professionals to see what we are learning about this infection and its spread."

The schoolgirl who died after contracting swine flu was named by a coroner's officer today as Sameerah Ahmad. The girl, who had underlying health problems, died at Birmingham children's hospital on Friday evening. It is not yet known if swine flu contributed to her death.

Sameerah, who was six, is believed to have been a pupil at Mayfield, a specialist school in Birmingham which caters for children with learning difficulties.

An inquest at Birmingham coroner's court heard today that Sameerah, who lived in Edgbaston with her parents, was born with a rare, life-threatening disease called microvillus inclusion disease that left her liable to contracting infections.

She was also suffering from a condition that weakened her bone marrow and immune system, making it difficult for her body to fight illness, although no clear diagnosis had been made.

Sameerah's father, Imran Ahmad, was told by the Birmingham coroner, Aiden Cotter, that a postmortem examination would be carried out.

When asked if he wanted this, Mr Ahmad said: "Obviously I do not, because she has been through a lot already in her life.

"She has been through a lot but if it's the law, it's the law. I cannot do anything about that."

Cotter told him it was not a strict law, but advised that a postmortem was necessary to find out how his daughter died.

The West Midlands has been declared a hotspot for the disease, with 2,104 confirmed cases so far, more than a third of the UK's total and more than two-fifths of all the cases in England.

The announcement of Sameerah's death was followed by warnings to parents not to take their children to "swine flu parties" in the hope that they catch the disease now and build up immunity.

Although no firm evidence has emerged that these are taking place, the family website mumsnet.com has seen discussions between parents on whether they should deliberately expose their offspring to the virus in the same way that chickenpox parties are sometimes arranged to allow friends to have the once-only disease at a convenient time.

But Richard Jarvis, of the British Medical Association's public health committee, said: "I think parents would want to take into account that the flu – although this strain is relatively mild for the most part – is something that will knock people off their feet for a few days and we are seeing appreciable morbidity, severe side-effects and sadly the occasional death."

A 73-year-old man from the Inverclyde area died at Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley, Scotland, on Saturday night.

The unnamed man, who had serious underlying health conditions, had been treated in the hospital's intensive care unit for the previous 15 days.

Jacqui Fleming, 38, who had just given birth prematurely, died two weeks ago at the same hospital. She also had other health problems.