At least 40 people have died and more than 1,000 have tested positive for swine flu since the beginning of the year in a western Indian state popular with foreigners, according to authorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The highly contagious H1N1 virus that spreads from human-to-human killed around 1,100 people and infected 15,000 across the country last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Total deaths are 40 and positive cases are 1,036 as from January 1 to 17 in Rajasthan. One of the deaths occurred on Thursday,” a statement by the Rajasthan health department said on Friday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rajasthan’s Jodhpur district recorded the highest death toll with 16 fatalities and 225 people testing positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least two people suffering from suspected swine flu also died in New Delhi this month, local media reported<\/a>.READ MORE<\/p>\n\n\n\n The capital has reported 168 cases until January 13, according to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Swine flu cases generally spike in the winter months of December and January in the west and north of the country including in Rajasthan and in New Delhi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Authorities in Rajasthan, famous for its deserts and palaces, have told doctors they must seek permission before going on leave and plan a door-to-door campaign to detect infected patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Health officials have also launched an awareness campaign to sensitise people about symptoms, precautions and treatment, and have screened more than 5,100 people. No travel advisory has been issued, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One high-profile victim in New Delhi this week was Amit Shah, a top aide to Prime Minister Narendra Modi<\/a>, who was admitted to hospital with the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shah, president of the right-wing ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP<\/a>) shared the news of his illness on his Twitter page<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A global pandemic alert<\/a> for swine flu was declared by the World Health Organization<\/a> in 2009 after early outbreaks in North America spread rapidly around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since late 2010, swine flu has been classified as a seasonal influenza virus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Symptoms include fever, cough, headache, muscle and joint pain, sore throat and runny nose, and sometimes vomiting and diarrhoea, according to the WHO<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At least 40 people have died and more than 1,000 have tested positive for swine flu since the beginning of the year in a western Indian state popular with foreigners, according to authorities. The highly contagious H1N1 virus that spreads from human-to-human killed around 1,100 people and infected 15,000 across the country last year. “Total deaths are 40 and positive cases are… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2979,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2978\/revisions\/2979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Killer swine flu strikes India<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n