South Africa’s health department friday said it had recorded its first case of the ‘swine flu’ A (H1N1) influenza virus. The announcement came when a 12-year-old boy identified as Aleksey Goussard, was diagnosed with the H1N1 virus shortly after arriving in South Africa from USA.
Reports have indicated that tests from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) confirmed on Thursday that Aleksey was infected with inluenza A (H1N1).
This comes just a week after the World Health Organization (WHO) elevated the status of the mutated avian, swine and human flu virus to a global pandemic.
NICD deputy director Dr Lucille Blumberg is quoted saying the boy had received antiviral drugs almost immediately, and WHO infection controls procedures were followed.
He has since been discharged and is recovering at home in isolation.
Anyone who may have been in contact with him has been contacted and
given the necessary medical treatment.
However, according to news reports the confirmed case has so far not altered the Health Department’s strategy to deal with H1N1, such as heightened clinical and laboratory surveillance and the training of outbreak response teams in all nine provinces.
Over 27,700 cases of infection have been reported in now 75 countries, with 141 deaths, according to WHO.
The United States and Mexico remain the most affected.
