Department of Virology, King Institute of Preventive Medicine & Research, Guindy, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Online published on 3 February, 2012.
Influenza A virus is a common human pathogen that had caused serious respiratory illness, pandemics and death over the past century. The emergence of a novel strain of influenza A virus (H1N1 2009) in April 2009 focused attention on Influenza surveillance capabilities worldwide.
A total of 11,735 samples were tested by Real time RT PCR during the period June 2009 to August 2010, out of which 1818 (15.49%) samples were found to be positive for H1N1 2009.
Of the 1818 positive cases, 620 (34.10%) were pediatric cases (less than 18 years of age) and 1198 (65.90%) were adult cases. Among the pediatric age group, it was the 6–12 age group which was more affected and in adults the 19–30 age group was maximum affected. H1N1 2009 positive cases were reported from June 2009, peaked in September and continued actively till January 2010 after which there was a decline.
A lesson learnt from this influenza outbreak is that any emergency can be dealt with if a well established public health and surveillance program is available, that allows an appropriate response. It is very important therefore to evolve standard outbreak containment measures by public health officials to effectively deal with such pandemics in the future.
Pandemics A/H1N1, Influenza, rRT-PCR
