REFUGEE

New Delhi: One person succumbed to swine flu in the country today even as 140 fresh cases of the disease were reported.

Delhi reported the maximum 30 fresh swine flu cases, while Karnataka and Tamil Nadu registered 22 each, Maharashtra reported 23, Kerala 13, and Haryana 8.

The lone death today was reported from Maharashtra which has seen the maximum number of people succumb to the disease.

The total number of deaths due to swine flu in the country rose to 396 today and the number of infected people touched 12,185.

Meanwhile, a new study revealed that adolescents and relatively healthy adults are especially at risk from swine flu.

The study, conducted during the first phase of infection between March 18 and June 1 in Mexico and April 16 through August 12 in Canada, also shows how emergency services were sometimes submerged by the number of serious cases that needed to be treated simultaneously.

At least 4,525 people have died from swine flu infections since April worldwide and there have been over 378,223 laboratory confirmed cases, the World Health Organisation said on last Friday, with most deaths occurring in the Americas.

"Our analysis of critically ill patients with 2009 influenza A (H1N1) reveals that this disease affected a young patient group," wrote the authors of the study led by Guillermo Dommnguez-Cherit of the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Midicas Nutricisn in Mexico City.