This year, India has officially recorded 2,721 cases and 44 confirmed deaths from swine flu (H1N1) so far, a marked decline from last year when 28,798 cases were reported. The National Centre for Disease Control, a Health Ministry body in charge of monitoring outbreaks, typically issues weekly reports on instances of significant outbreaks as reported from States. With the advent of COVID-19, it hadn’t updated its records on H1N1 since March.
Last year, there were 28,798 confirmed cases and 1,218 deaths and in 2017, 38,811 cases and 2,270 deaths. However, the year before saw only 1,786 cases and 263 deaths.
Possible winter ‘spike’
Officials say the relatively low number of cases this year didn’t mean that there would be fewer cases this year. The virus exhibited seasonality and there could be a possible winter ‘spike’ in the post monsoon months. “Normally we see two peaks during the year. This year the first peak seems to have been substantially lower than previous years but we have to see what lies ahead,” said Sujeet Kumar Singh, Director, NCDC.
He said the use of masks and social distancing could also have contributed to a decline in swine flu cases as it too was a respiratory infection but denied that there could have been under-reporting of cases because of limited hospital access due to COVID-19 restrictions.
This year, Karnataka has reported the maximum number of cases — 458 and three deaths — followed by Telangana (443 and five deaths) and Delhi (412 cases and 0 deaths).
In May, The Hindu reported that States that have historically borne the brunt of H1N1 cases were also those that were seeing a spike in COVID-19.
Mr. Singh said that for a while it did seem that the SARS-CoV-2 virus maybe ‘replacing’ the swine flu virus but now the data didn’t suggest such a trend.
Both HIN1 and COVID-19 are due to pathogens that trace their origins to viruses from non-human hosts, though they belong to different families.
Varying lethality
While both infiltrate the lungs and cause characteristic pulmonary infections, they have varying lethality. Swine flu infections have a higher case fatality rates (deaths per confirmed cases) and can cause significant deaths in children and those less than 60. The COVID-19 is relatively more dangerous to those above 60 and almost harmless in children.
February-March are typical months for influenza in India. Most influenza activity in northern India was seen during the summer months, but in southern and western India, cases occurred mostly during winter months.
