Has swine flu reached India?

As India boosts preventive measures against potential swine flu contagion, a report from Hyderabad about a possible infection.

Swine flu has reached Indian shores, unconfirmed reports say, as the deadly H1N1 virus causing swine flu rapidly spread across national boundaries.

A swine flu infected person has already landed at Hyderabad, according to reports. The person suspected to be having swine flu infection arrived from Texas, US – the region after Mexico where the swine flu spread two days ago.

The swine flu causing H1N1 virus was reported detected in the blood sample of the person while doing the mandatory screening procedure for travellers coming from flu infected regions. India has made it compulsory that all travellers arriving from swine flu infected countries to be screened for the virus at select airports.

As part of the programme to prevent an outbreak of swine flu in India, the health authorities are visiting home of people who had arrived from swine flu infected regions to India for the last 10 days, reports said.

However, the health authorities have not revealed any details regarding the detection of swine flu in the Texas traveller. Nor did the Ministry of Health confirm that the swine flu contagion has reached in India.

On the other hand there are reports in the press that no case of  swine flu has been detected in India, so far.

India has continued hectic preparations to prevent the occurrence of swine flu in the country through raising the alert levels, amidst conflicting news reports.

Besides issuing travel guidance, quarantines at airports, India has also stated stockpiling drugs to prevent a possible spread of swine flu.

The health ministry decided to stockpile three million doses of Tamiflu, the only known drug found to be effective against the virus.

“The additional one million would add to the government’s existing stockpile of one million doses of the drug. Ultimately, we intend to have three million doses of the drug,” a health ministry official stated.

Oseltamivir may be given as a preventive measure either during a community outbreak or following close contact with an infected individual. Standard prophylactic dosage is 75 mg once daily for patients aged 13 and older, which has been shown to be safe and effective for up to six weeks.

The World Health Organisation has raised the swine flu pandemic alert to level 5 -the second highest level indicating human to human outbreak of the disease – even as swine flu continue to spread across the continents.

On Wednesday, WHO had raised the alert level to Level Five following a third emergency meeting in response to a spike in swine flu cases world wide.

WHO’s alert level indicates nation-wise preparedness and response plans to fight when a pandemic-like situation breaks out. The former phase of alert in the WHO global influenza preparedness plan was 4, and has now just been raised to 5.

A phase 6 is the highest in the scale and is for a full-scale pandemic. Swine flu symptoms include fever, lack of appetite, cough, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and/or diarrhoea.