Swine flu infections on rise again in India as WHO readies to declare an end to H1N1 pandemic

Hospitalisations and deaths due to swine flu spiral in India even as WHO readies to officially declare an end to H1N1 pandemic.

At least 1000 new swine flu cases were across the country, with over 300 testing positive in the past week.

Delhi reported three fresh cases, taking the total number of H1N1 infections to 18 in this season. In addition, two persons succumbed to the infection at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital last week, reports said.

Since the outbreak last summer, the total number of laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1 in the national Capital has reached 9,717 with 96 people having fallen prey to the disease.

The onset of monsoons is causing a spurt in the number of infections in Indian cities, according to experts.

However, there is no need to panic as the health departments are well equipped to tackle any kind of situation, experts said.

Measures like sprucing up hospitals, stocking up on medicines, unleashing of information campaigns to generate awareness about detection and prevention of the influenza are in full swing.

Indian firms have also launched domestic vaccines in the country recently.

Serum Institute of India in Pune has launched a nasal spray H1N1 vaccine at the cost of Rs 150 per dose.

Zydus Cadila has also recently launched India’s first indigenously made H1N1 swine flu vaccine VaxiFlu-S in the country.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization’s emergency committee is about to review data infection data from Argentina to New Zealand and recommend that the agency and declare an end to the H1N1 swine flu pandemic.

WHO will determine whether the swine flu still calls for extra vigilance in the absence of any indication it has become more lethal or developed a resistance to drugs that fight it.
 
WHO declared the top level of its six-step pandemic alert in June 2009 after the discovery of the new H1N1 virus in Mexico and the U.S. two months earlier.

The H1N1 virus is now circulating at low levels worldwide after killing at least 18,337 people, WHO said on July 16.

“We are still not at the end of the Southern Hemisphere flu season, so we have to be very watchful,” stated a WHO official recently.

Seasonal flu kills as many as 500,000 people a year, according to WHO statistics. The full death toll from swine flu won’t be known until a year or two after the pandemic, the agency said.

Unlike seasonal flu, which kills predominantly the frail elderly, at least a fifth of those who died from swine flu were healthy adults with no underlying conditions, according to Sylvie Briand, head of WHO’s global influenza program.

Children younger than two years, pregnant women, people with lung diseases, metabolic disorders, weakened immune systems and certain neurological conditions are among groups at higher risk of developing a severe disease, WHO said in November. H1N1 also poses greater risk of complications in obese individuals and disadvantaged and indigenous populations, it said.

The pandemic virus is now behaving more like seasonal influenza in New Zealand, where it’s causing sporadic cases and clusters of infections in communities that may have avoided the disease last year, said Lance Jennings, a clinical virologist with Canterbury Health Laboratories in Christchurch.