swine flu

The study was instigated by a team of doctors from the Agency for Science, Research and Technology in Singapore, when a Singaporean woman’s virus mutated into a drug-resistant form overnight.

"Our data indicate that oseltamivir (generic name of tamiflu) resistance developed within two days," lead author of the study Masafumi Inoue said.

Though the World Health Organization had declared the swine flu pandemic as over, the H1N1 virus still penetrates in many parts of Asia, particularly in India. It has also joined the other seasonal infections.

Gurmeet Singh, a resident of sector-36 in Chandigarh is the first reported death from H1N1 in Mohali this year.

Gurmeet was suffering from Swine flu and other chronic ailments when he was admitted to the hospital, on Aug. 20, where he died of cardiac arrest.

He was kept in the isolation ward and was being treated by a team of doctors from Critical Care department headed by Dr Amit Kumar Mandal.

According to health officials, with 79 falling prey to the influenza in the past one week and 1,335 fresh infections surfacing across the nation, there is no way the guard can be lowered as the threat from the virus still persists.

“Till date, samples from 163,289 persons have been tested for Influenza A H1N1 in government laboratories and a few private laboratories across the country and 38,730 (23.7 percent) of them have been found positive,” an official statement from the health ministry said.

H1N1 status across the nation