Take up flu issue with affected countries: Azad to Krishna

New Delhi, June 10 (PTI) As swine flu spreads across the
country, the Indian Health Ministry has asked the country's
External Affairs Minister to prevail upon affected countries
to start screening all out-bound passengers to India in order
to cut down on the export of the deadly virus.

In the letter written Tuesday to Indian External Affairs
Minister S M Krishna, the country's Health Minister Ghulam
Nabi Azad said, "We expect a substantial inflow of our
students returning from vacation from affected countries.

"In this view you are requested to take up the matter
with the governments of affected countries to do screening of
out-bound passengers at their airports".

The letter said that without this it is expected that
India would be burdened with a large number of H1N1 cases
which may subsequently spread the disease.

Azad also wrote a letter to all the Indian states' chief
ministers to gear up their preparedness to check the spread of
the disease.

So far, samples of 197 persons have been tested of which
11 have tested positive for swine flu. Of these, two are
indigenous cases who acquired the infection from positive
cases who travelled from abroad.

Meanwhile, the health screening of passengers from
affected countries continued at 21 international airports. A
total of 44,489 passengers have been screened till date.
Around 23,782 passengers were from affected countries.

The World Health Organisation has reported 25,288
laboratory confirmed cases of swine flu infection from 73
countries. PTI