Thaindian News

Hyderabad, June 12 (IANS) India Friday reported one more swine flu patient, taking the number of cases to 16, with a six-year-old girl who had arrived here from the US testing positive for the H1N1 virus.
The samples of the girl, who arrived here along with her parents and six-month-old brother from New York on June 9, had tested positive for influenza A(H1N1), commonly known as swine flu, doctors said.

She has been quarantined and is being treated at the Andhra Pradesh Chest Hospital, the nodal centre for dealing with flu cases.

Though her parents have tested negative, the hospital is awaiting test results of the six-month-old child.

With the latest confirmed case, the number of influenza A patients undergoing treatment at the hospital rose to five.

Three patients have been treated and discharged from the hospital since May 16, when the first case was reported.

A four-month-old child who arrived from New Jersey Thursday has been kept under observation at the hospital after he was found with visible symptoms of swine flu. His samples have been sent to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), Delhi.

A four-and-half year old girl and her mother, who arrived from Philadelphia on May 31, tested positive for the virus on June 6. They contracted the virus from a techie, who travelled with them on the same flight via London.

The techie’s brother was also tested positive, making him the first Indian to be infected by swine flu without travelling abroad.

Swine flu was Thursday declared a pandemic by WHO with 74 countries reporting 28,774 cases of influenza A (H1N1) infection, including 144 deaths