Health Minister asks Indians not to panic over H1N1 !!!

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has told Indians not to panic, even though H1N1 flu has now been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

He has said that India has its defence against the flu in place. There are adequate medicines and doctors are being trained to handle the outbreak.

Swine flu is now officially the first pandemic of the 21st century. It's the worst influenza bug the world has seen in over 40 years.

Meanwhile, eighth case of swine-flu has been confirmed in Hyderabad.

The World Health Organisation declared it a Pandemic on Thursday with sharp rise in cases in the UK, Australia, Japan and Chile. Meanwhile, India continues to be in the 'containment stage' classified as grade IV. The Health Ministry says the disease has not spread in India and there are no clusters, so we continue to be in the lower level.

"The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic. We are in the earliest days of the pandemic. The virus is spreading under a close and careful watch. No previous pandemic has been detected so early or watched so closely in real time, right at the very beginning," said WHO chief Dr Margaret Chan.

The first swine flu case was detected in Mexico in April. And since then the infection has spread to 74 countries across the globe. Official reports say that there have been nearly 30,000 cases and over 140 deaths, with the number rising every day.

In India, 15 cases have been reported so far. The first case was detected in Hyderabad, and till now seven cases have been confirmed. Reports of people with flu-like symptoms are also trickling in from Coimbatore, Goa and Delhi. Meanwhile, three cases have already been confirmed in Delhi.

The announcement doesn't mean that the disease is worse. The alert of the highest level implies its geographical spread, and countries will have to tighten measures to tackle the spreading virus.

"The declaration of a pandemic does not suggest that there has been any change in the behavior of the virus, only that it is spreading in more parts of the world," said Thomas Frieden, director, CDC.