Eleven swine flu deaths, including six in Maharashtra and four in Karnataka, were reported on Saturday, pushing up India's toll from the Influenza A(H1N1) virus to 172, health authorities said here.
One death was reported from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad area, near the national capital. This is the first swine flu death in the state. According to NK.Chaturvedi, the medical superintendent of the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital here, the Ghaziabad resident had come to the hospital 12 days late. Ajay Aggarwal, 34, was admitted Sep 5. "But his condition was really bad ever since he came to the hospital. Since he came late, the treatment was delayed. Even a delay of five days can be fatal," Chaturvedi said.
In Karnataka, the death toll due to the H1N1 virus has reached 57, a health official said. While three deaths were reported from Bangalore, the fourth was in Kolar. All four victims were women. Though they died earlier, the report confirming that they tested positive for the virus was received Sep 11, the health official said. Briefing on swine flu treatment in Karnataka, which has seen a large number of deaths, state's health minister B Sreeramulu has said the government would bear expenses of the swab test that amounts to Rs.2,000.
Meanwhile, 183 fresh cases were reported in the country, taking the total number of people affected with the virus to 5,979. Of the total 183 fresh cases, 56 were from Delhi. This took the number of people affected with the flu in the national capital to 1,169. Maharashtra, which has so far registered the highest number of deaths and cases in the country, reported 42 new cases. With this, the total number of people affected with the influenza in the state rose to 1,985. At least 78 people in Maharashtra have lost their lives due to the flu since the first death was reported Aug 3.
The other fresh cases were from Karnataka (28), Tamil Nadu (24), Andhra Pradesh (11), Kerala (7), Haryana (5), Uttarakhand (4), and Chhattisgarh (1).
WHO recants H1N1 advice on schools
The global health watchdog, World Health Organisation, may have learnt a lesson or two from India's handling of the H1N1 swine flu outbreak. Almost six months after the bug made its presence felt, WHO has said closing schools at the start of an H1N1 flu outbreak could slow down the virus' spread by almost 30%-50% and help buy crucial time to build up defences against the highly infectious strain of influenza.
This is exactly what Indian schools, especially in Delhi and Pune, did. And interestingly, they did so against the Union health ministry's wishes. Following WHO's advice, the ministry had, for the past few months, been speaking of the lack of benefits in keeping entire schools shut after students tested positive for H1N1 infection. The ministry's advice was to shut only those classes where a student had tested positive for H1N1. Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had held "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."
But on Saturday, WHO said experience to date has demonstrated the role of schools in amplifying transmission of the pandemic virus, both within and into the wider community. This has led to the revision of its opinion. After "drawing on recent experiences in several countries", WHO said school closure can operate as a proactive measure in reducing transmission of H1N1. WHO said, "The main benefit of proactive school closure comes from slowing down the spread of an outbreak within a given area and thus flattening the peak of infections. School closure can also buy some time as countries intensify preparedness measures or build up supplies of vaccines and antiviral drugs."
WHO's modeling studies suggest school closure has its greatest benefits when this is effected very early in an outbreak. If schools close too late in the course of a community-wide outbreak, the resulting reduction in transmission is likely to be very limited.
