Two NRIs admitted to hospital in Delhi with swine flu symptoms: report

Two NRIs – one coming from London and the other from Texas, US, have been admitted to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi with suspected H1N1 flu symptoms, agency reports said toady.

The report said the 35-year-old London-based NRI was brought to hospital from the Indira Gandhi International Airport while the 25-year-old from Texas got himself admitted to the the hospital, the report said, adding that both are under observation in the isolation ward.

There was, however, no official confirmation of any case of swine flu in the country so far, although the situation is being monitored.

Health screening of passengers coming from affected countries is continuing in 18 international airports at Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bangalore, Calicut, Chennai, Cochin, Coimbatore, Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Srinagar and Trichy, a government release said, adding that screening of passengers at Varanasi will start tomorrow.

A total of 33,936 passengers have been screened. About 126 doctors and 71 paramedics have been deployed to man 51 counters at the above airports. Three passengers arriving at Delhi and one at Hyderabad were earlier referred to the identified health facility. The samples of those who disembarked at Delhi have been tested negative for Influenza A. The samples of the Hyderabad passenger are under test.

As of today the World Health Organisation has reported 615 laboratory confirmed cases of influenza A/H1N1 infection with 17 deaths from fifteen countries. There are 141 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 (34), Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of China) (1), Denmark (1), France (1), Germany (4), Israel (2), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (4), Republic of Korea (1) Spain (13), Switzerland (1) and United Kingdom (13).