: AzadKounteya Sinha, TNN 10 August 2009, 03:50am IST
NEW DELHI: Admitting that the no government measure could prevent the spread of the H1N1 influenza in India, Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad
said on Sunday that around one-third of the Indian population was likely to get infected with the virus over the next two years, in accordance with WHO predictions. But most people would suffer only mild symptoms of the disease, he added. ``It's a global pandemic. If countries across the world - around 168 till now - are suffering from a H1N1 outbreak, so will India. We are, however, lucky that it didn't start from here,'' Azad told TOI in an interview. However, Azad had one clear message - there is no need to panic as India is still much better off than most countries across the globe who have been hit harder by the pandemic. Azad said India, which till Sunday recorded 864 positive cases of H1N1 with four deaths, was still in the early days of the outbreak.
``We will see many more positive cases of H1N1 infection and maybe more deaths, exactly similar to what is happening across the globe. The virus is highly contagious. People should self report and not wait for government to track them down,'' he added. According to him, it hasn't even reached the pandemic stage in India. Azad, praising India's phenomenal job in keeping the virus quiet for so long, said industrialized countries such as UK, US, Canada, Australia and Argentina were reporting positive cases in lakhs every week. `
`In England, there were 30,000 cases of H1N1 last week and 1.10 lakh cases the week before. Around 36 people have died there so far. In Argentina, they have registered a total of 7.62 lakh cases of flu of which 93% are H1N1 infections. They have had 337 deaths,'' the minister said. "The US, which has stopped recording positive cases, has at present 6,506 people hospitalized with H1N1 infection and 436 deaths. In Australia, there are around 30,000 confirmed H1N1 cases with 85 deaths. So you can understand the intensity of the virus spread. In comparison, till yesterday India had 782 positive H1N1 cases of which 511 have been treated and discharged and 271 are under treatment. We have recorded four deaths till now,'' he added. According to the health minister, two of India's innovative interventions - entry screening at airports and ports and mass scale contact tracing - have proved a saver. ``Or else, by now we would have had crores of H1N1 infected people,'' Azad said. He said India's interventions had been applauded globally. ``We have till now screened over 45 lakh passengers in 22 international airports. Every third H1N1 positive case in India was identified through airport screening. And then we tracked down every single person the infected patient may have come in contact with, looking for H1N1 symptoms in them. Till now, over 8,000 contacts of infected patients have been traced and given prophylactic treatment besides those who were found to be H1N1 positive,'' he said. On what discussions took place when he met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the latest deaths, Azad said, ``It was a simple review meeting.
The PM wanted to know what the ministry was doing. He made no suggestions.'' On what India was doing as part of its control and containment operations, he said, ``We are starting an exclusive H1N1 influenza website on Monday which will tell people about do's and don'ts, where to go for clinical assessment and testing, statewise situation of the pandemic, phone numbers and names of labs and hospitals one should approach and total number of cases and deaths being reported due to H1N1. However it will not have a flu tracker as of now which will tell you whether you should report to authorities on typing down your symptoms,'' Azad said.
Meanwhile, Azad wasn't happy about schools across India shutting down because their students tested positive. In Delhi, the privately run Sanskriti School closed down for a week after three students tested positive for swine flu, including one who recently visited Britain. ``Till now, it is clear that the virus is city centric. Not a single case has come up from the villages. Shutting a school wouldn't mean you can stop students from attending parties and meeting friends in the evening where they can get the infection. Schools must stay open,'' Azad told TOI. WHO had earlier said that by the end of the pandemic, anywhere between 15-45% of a population will have been infected by the new pandemic virus. If one takes the mid-point figure, 30%, it'll mean 2 billion people getting the infection, WHO said. India on Sunday recorded 82 new cases of H1N1 - Delhi 13, Pune 34, Mumbai 12, Chennai 7, Goa 4, Vadodara 3, Calicut 2, Hyderabad 2, Gurgaon 2, Trivandrum 1, Sirsa (Haryana) 1 and Trissur 1. In Delhi out of the 13 cases, 12 are contact cases. All the 34 cases in Pune are indigenous cases, mostly school and social contacts with no travel history. In Mumbai, out of 12 cases, 11 cases are indigenous ones.
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