Epidemiological Study of Influenza A(H1N1) Virus Infection during Lockdown Due to COVID-19 Pandemics in Uttarakhand

Objectives: The purpose of this research was to study the epidemiology of H1N1 influenza A virus infection during lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic in Uttarakhand.

Methodology: An analysis of primary data, obtained from DNA Labs-A Center for Applied Sciences, Dehradun after detection of the throat and nasal swabs by RT-PCR method. The total number of samples were 102 which were collected from the suspected cases for influenza like illness (ILI) in and around Uttarakhand region in different age groups. Molecular Characterization was done for all the cases. The data contained the cases from the month of March, 2020 to the month of November, 2020.

Results: Results showed that after the onset of lockdown, the number of positive cases for H1N1 influenza viral infection were less in comparative to the negative cases (30 positive cases and 72 negative cases). Age group from 21 to 40 years and above 70 years became infected with the H1N1 swine flu and suffered with Category C symptom.

Conclusions: This research provides the significant findings for the epidemiological study of H1N1 influenza viral infection during lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemics in Uttarakhand. It could be said that due to the similarities of the symptoms of H1N1 influenza A virus and COVID-19, all the cases were referred to COVID-19 testing due to its impact even though that case could have been suffering from any other disease including H1N1 as the symptoms similarities between these two viruses are almost the same.