State dept claims H1N1 on declining trend; 7 test +ve in city

PUNE The state infectious diseases department, on Thursday, claimed a declining trend of influenza A, H1N1, infection in the last two months in Maharashtra.

PUNE The state infectious diseases department, on Thursday, claimed a declining trend of influenza A, H1N1, infection in the last two months in Maharashtra.

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In Pune on Thursday, seven tested positive for H1N1 and four are on ventilator support, according to Dr S Wavre, assistant health officer, PMC.

The state’s director for epidemiology and infectious diseases, Dr Pradeep Awate said, “We had predicted a major outbreak of H1N1 in the state this monsoon, but in the last two months there is hardly any activity of the virus which have been recorded. It seems to be a downward trend which is quite surprising, because we saw a sudden spurt of cases in March and strong prediction that it may come on strongly in the monsoon.”

Awate said, “The decline can be seen when the month of March is compared to monsoon now. In July and August we recorded four deaths in each month, while in summer, that is in March, we reported 66 deaths. Currently the death toll of the infection is 202 for the entire state, of which 29 are recorded from Pune area, both rural and urban included.”

“We were prepared to deal with the outbreak and had even conducted many awareness camps along with vaccination drives, but surprisingly, the virus showed a declining trend,” Awate claimed, adding, “So far, we have recorded 2,131 positive cases of infection in the state, of which 163 are from PMC area.”

Eom/Nozia