The Ministry of Health's Preventive Medicine Department has asked relevant bodies to take measures to prevent a new strain of swine flu virus found recently in the US from entering the country.
The Ministry of Health's Preventive Medicine Department has asked relevant bodies to take measures to prevent a new strain of swine flu virus found recently in the US from entering the country.
The requirement followed an announcement by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stating that three children in the state of Iowa had been diagnosed as suffering from A /H3N1 on November 23.
None of the children were hospitalised, and each had recovered from a mild episode of febrile respiratory illness. All three were in contact with one another, but none were known to have been exposed to swine.
No additional human cases of the virus had been detected in Iowa, and no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission existed. Surveillance was ongoing, the CDC reported last Friday.
The new strain was reported to be a mutation of the A/H1N1 virus, which caused an epidemic in 74 countries in 2009, and the A/H3N2 virus.
The National Institute for Hygiene and Epidemiology and the Pasteur Institute were asked to strengthen quarantine measures and monitor people suffering from flu, especially those from the affected area. They will also keep a close watch on pneumonia cases which were the suspected cause of the virus. No cases of the strain have been detected in the country
The country now has vaccines for A/H3N1, H3N2 and H1N1. Health experts said that flu vaccinations were necessary because they had the potential to stop strains from mutating.
According to the World Health Organisation, as of April 2010, more than 214 countries and territories had reported confirmed cases of influenza H1N1, sometimes dubbed swine flu, resulting in nearly 17,800 deaths.
(Source: VNS)
