More swine flu suspects in Delhi, Mumbai

A day after seven suspects tested negative for Influenza A (H1N1) virus, two more suspects in New Delhi and one suspect in Mumbai on Sunday night reported to have flu symptoms.

A 28-year-old Indian girl returning from Frankfurt after a mountaineering trip and a 24-year-old boy from Detroit (United States) were quarantined for H1N1 flu symptoms like fever, cough, and upper respiratory diseases late on Sunday night.

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They are now confined at an airport quarantine facility at the Indira Gandhi International airport in New Delhi. Nasal and throat samples of the two have been sent to National Institute of Communicable Diseases (Delhi) and National Institute of Virology (Pune) for testing.

In Mumbai, the first suspected case reported when a 57-year-old Worli-resident, who returned from New York on April 28, reported cough symptoms. His throat-swab samples are also being tested at the Pune-based National Institute of Virology. Reports in all the cases are expected to come today.

Meanwhile, passengers arriving from affected countries are properly being screened at 21 international airports across India, including Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bangalore, Calicut, Chennai, Cochin, Coimbatore, Delhi, Varanasi, Goa, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mangalore, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Srinagar, Trichy and Trivandrum.

A total of 41,012 passengers have been screened so far. 140 doctors and 101 paramedics have been deployed to man 59 counters at the above airports.

As of now, no positive cases of H1N1 infection have been reported in the country. The situation is being monitored.

WHO update on Influenza A (H1N1)

World Health Organization has reported 658 laboratory confirmed cases of influenza A/H1N1 infection with 17 deaths from sixteen countries.

There are 160 laboratory confirmed human cases in USA with one death. Mexico has reported 397 cases including sixteen deaths. The other countries which have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths are: Austria (1), Canada (51), Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of China) (1), Costa Rica (1) Denmark (1), France (2), Germany (6), Israel (3), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (4), Republic of Korea (1) Spain (13), Switzerland (1) and United Kingdom (15).