Swine flu outbreak in India kills 95 people

An outbreak of swine flu in northern India has killed at least 95 people since the beginning of the year, officials and news reports said Friday.

Nearly 500 cases of H1N1 influenza have been reported from four states including national capital New Delhi and the north-western state of Rajasthan was the worst-affected, the Times of India newspaper reported.

Sixty-four people died in Rajasthan, 18 deaths were reported from Haryana, 10 from Punjab and three in New Delhi by Wednesday, the report said citing Health Ministry data.

The Health Ministry spokesman could not immediately confirm the figures. He cited the World Health Organization studies which said the H1N1 virus was circulating as a seasonal influenza and sporadic outbreaks have been reported from across the country.

The World Health Organisation had in previous warnings that there would be localised outbreaks of varying magnitude of H1N1 transmission after the end of the pandemic in August 2010 and for years to come, the spokesman said.

More than 2 000 people have died of swine flu across India since May 2009, most of them during the outbreak that occurred in that year, according to health officials.