Sangrur, March 3: A new case of swine flu has been reported from Sangrur district on Monday. With this, the swine flu case count has reached four. The patient is Monica Arora, 24, of Bagrian village in Amargarh sub-division.
She had gone to Hisar in Haryana on February 8 and to an Arab country after that. She returned to Hisar on February 15 and fell ill.
“Initially, she took medicines from private hospitals in Hisar and Nabha, and was then admitted at PGIMER, Chandigarh. She is now undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Patiala,” said civil surgeon Dr Kiranjot Bali.
The human respiratory infection caused by a particular influenza virus H1N1 strain — known as the swine flu — was first recognised in US in 2009. As it spread across countries within months the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared it a global pandemic in August 2010. The virus circulates as a seasonal flu and every year, infecting hundreds of people.
Initially, this virus was referred to as ‘swine flu’ because many genes in the virus were quite similar to influenza viruses which normally occur in pigs (swine) in North America. But further studies showed that the 2009 H1N1 was different. This virus was a result of ‘reassortment’, a process through which two or more influenza viruses share genetic information by infecting a single human or animal host.
Source Hindustan Times
