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2 cases of swine flu confirmed in India's capital city

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, June 9, IRNA -- Two cases of swine flu were confirmed in India’s matopma; capital, Delhi Monday, bringing total number of persons suffering from viral ailment across country to 11.

While the first case in Delhi is that of a 35-year-old man who reached the capital from New York, the second case is that of his mother (60), who seems to have caught the infection from him in a case of human to human transmission of the disease, Shivlal, Director of National Institute of Communicable (NICD) said.

He said that though most of the positive cases had come up in Hyderabad, there was no questioning of "clustering" of the virus in any particular area.

"We have identified 82 people who came in contact with those infected and have already distributed Tamiflu to them," he said.

Hyderabad has reported seven cases. It also reported the first case of swine flu in India on May 16.

Screening of passengers coming from the affected countries is continuing at 21 international airports and over 1.3 million passengers have been screened so far.

A Central Rapid Response Team is assisting Andhra Pradesh for instituting public health measures that need to be taken in the event of a cluster reporting.

After a high-level meeting with senior officials, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters, "Lot of arrangements have already been made. Passengers, especially from the US, Mexico, Dubai and Canada, are being checked on all the 21 international airports."

But in view of the fact that the disease might acquire larger proportions, he said the government has decided to activate 16 more laboratories to test for the swine flu virus in addition to the existing two in Delhi and Pune.

Azad said special caution has to be taken as the infection has now in one or two cases spread from human to human.

"The Health Ministry already has the labs, but they are for testing different diseases. They would be prepared for H1N1 flu also and the lab technicians and doctors would be trained within a week," he said.