Swine Flu Progress in India - 1

The projected number of laboratory confirmed swine-flu cases in India in the next five days based on my calculations are as follows:

New Cases Total

23 Aug 142 2812

24 Aug 144 2956

25 Aug 150 3106

26 Aug 155 3261

27 Aug 161 3422

The apparent mortality rate =(total no. of deaths/total no. of cases) appears to be quite large for India (about 2%) compared to the rest of the world. This can be due to under estimation of the denominator since a large number of swine flu cases may not be referred for testing at a designated centre.

If we assume that the widely reported 0.5% mortality rate is also true for India it indicates that the actual number of cases can be about the four times the laboratory confirmed numbers.

Since nearly three-fourths of the cases of swine-flu are not detected these individuals will spread the disease without their knowing. This can be a cause of concern particularly for the high risk groups.