Swine flu stages come back in Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: With a 22-year-old woman admitted in a private hospital in Bhubaneswar testing positive for H1N1 virus, the Odisha government on Saturday confirmed the first case of swine flu in state this year.
While 32 persons were killed from the disease in 2010 in the state, no positive case was detected in 2011. "The Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) has conveyed us about the positive case.We have dispatched a team of personnel to the patient's native place and the treatment centre for further investigations," director public health services (DPHS) Dr Prasad Kumar Patnaik told TOI.
Patnaik said the government is alert. "We have taken stock of the situation. The state drug unit has sufficient Tamiflu, the medicine effective against the influenza A virus. There is no reason to panic," he said. The DPHS said condition of the patient is totally stable and she is recuperating well. The woman was reportedly taken out of ventilator after her condition improved though she continues to be in the intensive care unit (ICU).
Sources said RMRC had tested 16 suspected cases, one of which tested positive for H1N1. Few other states except Maharashtra have reported H1N1 this year; Pune city has reported over 10 H1N1 deaths recently. As many as 981 people died of H1N1 in the country in 2009 from among 27,236 who tested positive. In the year 2010, 1763 people were killed in the infection from among 20604 positive cases. Seventy-five of the 603 positives cases died of the disease in 2011.