JAIPUR, India — Indian officials this week scrambled to cope with a rise in cases of the flu, which they say has sickened thousands of people and caused the deaths of 700 since the beginning of January.
The Health Ministry has deployed teams of experts to five regions where the largest numbers of cases have emerged, and asked state governments to study “patterns in mortality.”
According to the World Health Organization, India is reporting unusually high levels of H1N1 seasonal flu, a descendant of the swine flu that first emerged in Mexico in 2009. That new flu — actually a novel mix of human, bird and pig genes — spread widely enough to be declared a pandemic, but ultimately proved to be no more lethal than other flus. Health Minister J. P. Nadda told reporters on Thursday that “we should not panic, but at the same time, remain alert.”
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“I think this is just a flu season, the winter is ending and we are moving toward summer,” he said. “There is panic being created because of the name ‘swine flu.’ ”
Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on February 20, 2015, on page A3 of the New York edition with the headline: India Deploys Expert Teams to Study Rise in Flu Cases . Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
