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The World
Health Organization declared the swine flu pandemic over in August 2010 ©Sam
Panthaky (AFP)
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An outbreak of swine flu
has left 33 people dead in two provinces of southwestern Iran in the last three
weeks, the official IRNA news agency reported on Monday. IRNA quoted Deputy Health
Minister Ali Akbar Sayyari as saying there had been 28 deaths in Kerman
province and five in Sistan-Baluchistan and warning the H1N1 virus was likely
to spread to other areas including the capital Tehran.
AFP report continues:
"The
health ministry predicts that the virus will spread in the coming days to
Tehran, West and East Azerbaijan and Kermanshah provinces more than to other
places," he said.
Nearly
600 people have been hospitalized in Kerman province over the outbreak, the
head of the province's medical university, Ali Akbar Haghdoost, told the IRNA
news agency.
"Traces
of the H1N1 virus were uncovered three weeks ago and we were the first province
to report the epidemic," Haghdoost said.
He
called for limited travel during a three-day holiday weekend due to start on
Thursday in order to prevent the spread of the virus.
A
major H1N1 outbreak in 2009 sparked a World Health Organization pandemic alert
in June 2009, after the virus emerged from Mexico and the United States.
The alert was lifted in
August 2010 and the outbreak left some 18,500 people dead in 214 countries.
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