Re: Maharashtra Flu reports April 1 2011 to date. 8 fatalities
Re: Maharashtra Flu reports April 1 2011 to date. 8 fatalities
23 more people test positive for H1N1
PUNE: As many as 23 people, including six children, tested positive for swine flu in the city on Tuesday, taking the total count of infected people to 63 since March 5.
Health officials will be checking up on the schools where the children go to. Going by the experience of 2009, when scores of students came down with the infection, triggering closure of many institutions, the health officials say they are taking every precaution to ward off the spread among children.
"Among the 23 positive patients, a few are children who have been found infected with the pandemic H1N1 influenza," Shyam Satpute, assistant medical officer of health told TOI. "Their parents have been asked to quarantine them at home. We have started investigating their school addresses so that we can take further precautions." The children range in age from two to six. "Two of them are being treated at Noble Hospital and Ruby Hall Clinic. They are recuperating," Satpute said.
Since the spurt of H1N1 cases began, this is the first time that such a large number of positive patients has been reported in a single day.
The condition of two patients being treated at KEM hospital and Prayag hospital continues to be critical and both are on ventilator support, health officials said.
The number of throat swabs coming to NIV for testing has increased in the last few days. "We have received 35 samples in the last two days," said Mandeep Chadha, deputy director of NIV.
On May 2, 2009, the NIV had received its first throat swab sample from Hyderabad. The institute started receiving samples from Maharashtra from June 2009 onwards, most of them from Pune and Mumbai.
Of the total number of throat swabs that came in for testing at NIV from June 2009 to August 2010, 31,366 samples were from Maharashtra alone. Nearly 5,000 samples were from other parts of the country. Of the total samples received from the state, 6,889 cases had tested positive, with an average 22 per cent infection rate over the year.
On August 10, 2010, WHO director-general Margaret Chan announced that the H1N1 influenza virus had moved into the post-pandemic period. However, localised outbreaks of various magnitudes are likely to continue.
In Pune, the transmission of the swine flu virus went down in 2011. "In 2011, we at NIV received 1,400 samples for testing. Among them only 2 % swabs tested positive for swine flu," Chadha said.
Again, in March this year, scientists at NIV have seen a 10 to 15% rise in swine flu cases.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...st-positive-for-H1N1/articleshow/12348635.cms
