Swine flu virus spreads in six more districts

Swine flu infection spread to six more districts during the Eid holidays raising the total number of patients to 604 in the country, with 232 new cases identified in the last two weeks.
‘The swine flu virus has spread in 21 districts including Dhaka so far. The virus spread in new six districts during Eid holidays as people moved to different districts,’ said Mahmudur Rahman, director of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research at a weekly press briefing on Sunday.
He said that they had detected 232 new cases of swine flu infection in last two weeks while the total number of confirmed swine flu patients reached to 604 so far since June 18, when the first case of swine flu infection was detected in the country.
He said three people so far died after contacting swine flu virus in the country but no new death due to the virus was reported in the last two weeks.
Another person died at Dhaka medical College Hospital reportedly from swine flu virus infection but there was no laboratory confirmation.
Mahmudur said the virus had spread mainly in four divisions, Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Sylhet.
‘Among the infected people, around 52 per cent are from Dhaka. Only around 15 per cent patients of the total infected people needed to be admitted to the hospitals,’ he said.
Mahmudur said the swine flu pandemic could continue for one year in the country. ‘There is no plan to close the swine flu units in the hospitals or stop other activities because the World Health Organisation has declared the flu pandemic.’
IEDCR officials, however, said the level of swine flu infection across the country was decreasing in the recent days.
ASM Alamgir, senior scientific officer of IEDCR, said the characteristics of the virus had not been changed in last six months.
‘The virus has not changed its characteristics in the past six months and the trend of the virus infection is decreasing. So there is little possibility that the virus will mix with other influenza viruses like dengue,’ he said.
Mahmudur said they would arrange a training programme for around 250 city school teachers in October so that the teachers could manage students. The training would be expanded to the whole country in phases, he added.
He hoped that the swine flu vaccine would reach the country in December and they would be able to start the vaccination early next year.
Mahmudur, meanwhile, said the number of patients with Dengue fever was increasing in the Dhaka city in last few days. ‘But the situation is under control because unlike the swine flu, the dengue fever can be identified immediately by platelet counting of the blood,’ he said.