30 Apr :India has not reported any suspected case of deadly swine flu so far and the country has "tremendous capacity" to deal with the situation in the event of an outbreak of the influenza, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said today.
"India has not reported any case of swine flu. For that matter, none of the South East Asian countries have reported any suspected case," J P Narain, Director, Communicable Diseases, WHO, South-East Asia region, said.
"They (India) have tremendous capacity to deal with any kind of situation and it is very much in the forefront of prepardeness… capacity is very much there… we have absolutely no doubt about that," he told reporters in New Delhi.
On reports of a suspected swine flu case in Hyderabad, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Deputy Regional Director of WHO, said the laboratory tests of the person who was suspected to have the flu tested negative.
The WHO authorities said situation continues to evolve rapidly and that as of yesterday nine countries have officially reported 148 cases of swine influenza A/H 1N1 infection.
Narain said while Mexico has confirmed 26 human cases of infection, including seven deaths, Canada has reported 13 laboratory confirmed cases, Austria (1), Germany (3), israel (2), New Zealand (3), Spain (4) and the United Kingdom (5).
Asked whether the WHO was satisfied with India’s response so far, Narain said, "India has surveillance and also the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) and the country followed all the steps."
He said the IDSP has an "excellent system" of connectivity between districts and states and the country was in the forefront in preparedness.
Responding to a question, he said the WHO regional office has 3 million stockpile of Tamiflu treatments and the world health body’s headquarters has an additional 3.5 million Tamiflu treatments.
He said only one suspected case of Swine flu was reported in Thailand and that the laboratory tests of the person tested negative.
"South East Asian countries are prepared for any eventuality and have stepped their surveillance," Poonam said.