4 more swine flu cases take the tally to 35 in India
POSTED June 18, 2009 - 10:21 | POSTED BY Jyoti Pal
Last edited by Harpreet Bhagrath on June 18, 2009 - 12:02
The national capital accounts for ten infections, out of which five patients have been treated and discharged.
Latest cases
The latest entries in the swine flu register include three boys and a 35-year-old woman. As has been the case with majority of the sufferers thus far, the most recent cases appear to have been infected on a foreign visit.
The woman and her six-year-old son came back from Chicago. The other two victims include a 17-year-old boy who arrived from Washington and a 10-year-old who came from Canada.
Two of the latest victims have been admitted in the Yellow Fever Hospital while the other two are undergoing treatment at the Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, the nodal centre for treatment of patients.
Dr Shivlal, director of National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), confirmed, “The four persons who have tested positive for swine flu in the capital are in hospital and undergoing treatment."
‘Foreign-returned’ cases aplenty
The increasing number of infections being reported from ‘foreign return’ cases underscores the need to up the ante on checking inbound travelers.
The central health minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, has already urged the Indian citizens, especially young people from educational institutions, to put off traveling abroad until the flu is under control.
The government is also contemplating stopping of parallel testing of samples at the NICD in Delhi and the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune to save money as well as precious time.
In the absence of simultaneous testing, the samples from the state of Maharashtra and nearby areas would be sent to Pune while samples from the rest of the country would be sent to Delhi.
