A high-level team from Delhi is expected to arrive in Hyderabad on Saturday night as five of the seven confirmed H1N1 cases in the country have been reported in Andhra Pradesh. This includes the first case of a person who has got the infection locally.
A 25-year-old engineer in Hyderabad got infected after staying with his 28-year-old software engineer brother who had returned from the US on May 31 with the H1N1 virus on a British Airways flight.
On the same flight was a four and a half year old child who has also tested positive.
"In countries like the US there is no screening at exit point, but only at the entry point. So the infection is getting exported," said Andhra Pradesh Government Chest Hospital doctor B Subhakar.
The big challenge now is not just to make surveillance much more thorough at entry points like airports, but also increase isolation facility manifold because though H1N1 is curable, those affected are highly infectious.
At Hyderabad's chest hospital, for example, there is provision for a maximum of 12 people to be kept in isolation but the number of inpatients is already 10.
