New Delhi: Fifteen more fresh cases,
including six from here, of swine flu were reported today
taking the total number of those affected with the virus
to 323 in the country and a school in Pune was closed for a
week due to a rise in the number of students with the disease.
With six fresh cases in the national capital, the
total number of those affected with swine flue crossed the
100-mark here. There are 105 reported cases in the city so
far, out of whom 12 remained in the hospital.
Besides the cases in Delhi, two cases each were
reported from Chennai, Vishakhapatnum and Pune and one each
from Gurgaon, Dehradun and Thiruvanathapuram.
Among the six cases in Delhi are a 15-year-old girl
student, who was in contact of a previously reported positive
case, and a 15-year-old boy, Health Ministry officials said.
In Pune, a reputed English medium school was closed
today for a week following an alarming rise in the number of
its students testing positive for swine flu, which has touched
13. Ten students of the school are already in an isolation
ward of a hospital.
Delhi Health Department officials said that out of the
12 patients still in hospital in the city, six are students.
Eight students, who had contacted the disease, have been
discharged after medication.
Out of the six students, officials said, two cases
were that of two girls of St Thomas School in Mandir Marg who
tested positive last night for the virus.
The Health Department has already issued advisories to
private schools informing them about precautions to be taken
to prevent the spread of the disease among other students.
Teams from Health Department visited the affected schools.
In Delhi, St Thomas School had asked a section of
class VII to go on precautionary leave after one of its
students tested positive for swine flu while Sardar Patel
Vidyalaya in Lodhi Estate had asked some students and teachers
to go on leave following reports of a student being affected
by the disease.
The Springdales School on Pusa Road had also asked
students of standards VI and IX to remain at home till July
22.
Minister of State for Agriculture K V Thomas informed
the Lok Sabha that the government was keeping a vigil to
tackle any outbreak of swine flu in animals in the country.
"The government is maintaining necessary vigil to
tackle any situation of occurrence of swine flu in animals in
the country," he said.
A contingency plan has been chalked up to fight the
threat and save livestock and poultry. Already, an advisory
with a fact-sheet on swine flu has been circulated to all
states in April, he said.
State governments have undertaken intensive physical
surveillance of swine population in the country. If any
unusual mortality in pigs is seen, the samples will be sent to
High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal, he added.
Meanwhile, a Thai girl studying in a residential school
in Dehradun has been tested positive for Swine flu.
The 8-year-old girl is currently admitted to an isolated
ward of her school`s hospital where quarantine facilities are
available.
She recently came back from her home in Thailand and had
reported symptoms of swine flu, Dr Pankaj Jain, the nodal
officer of swine flu in Uttarakhand, said.
He said the New Delhi-based National Institute of
Communicable Diseases this evening confirmed that the swab and
other samples of the girl were reported positive.
Bureau Report
