New Delhi - India's first local case of transmission of the swine flu virus has been confirmed in the southern Andhra Pradesh state, taking the total number of people affected by the disease to nine, media reports said Sunday. The transmission took place when a software-engineer who returned from the United States on May 31, passed on the infection to his younger brother in state capital Hyderabad.
Both tested positive for the virus, the PTI news agency reported.
"While others who tested positive had come from other countries, the 24-year-old is the first person to be infected without traveling abroad," the state's top health official LV Subrahmanyam told said.
On Sunday, two fresh cases were confirmed. A mother of a 5-year old son who also tested positive for the infection earlier, and another man, both co-passengers of the software-engineer on the flight from the US, were suffering from the infection.
A team from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases had reached Hyderabad to discuss contingency plans for Andhra Pradesh, which has reported seven out of India's nine swine-flu cases.
Authorities decided to increase surveillance at the Hyderabad international airport.
According to the World Health Organisation, over 100 people in Mexico have died from the new virus since the outbreak in April.
Globally, 125 people have died from the disease, the health agency said, though in some cases the victims had some other underlying medical condition. There were 21,940 infections across 69 countries, the WHO reported in its latest update.
