With close to two months of battling with cases of H1N1 (swine flu), an official in the Ministry of Health has announced that the efforts to curb the infection rate have finally paid off.

According to the Head of the Swine flu response team, Dr. Justine Wane, new reports show that only 7 cases have been confirmed countrywide since last week, a big comparison to the initial daily reports that showed over 4 daily cases.

"We attribute this decreased infection rate to the rapid response towards this flu. In order to manage this problem, we have closely worked together with the regional sentinel surveillance sites which enable quick confirmation of new cases in a bid to prevent further infections.

"The new cases are from Musanze province and the Belgium school in Kigali. As we normally do, the infected have been isolated and are receiving proper treatment. All swine flu cases are mild in the region so there is no need for alarm,” Wane assured, in a phone interview with The New Times.

Since the internal outbreak that was first confirmed on October 9, the total number of treated cases is 312.

However, Wane noted that despite the decreased infection rate, the public should continue to practice the major prevention measures like washing hands as often as possible and covering noses and mouths when sneezing and coughing among others.

Influenza A, H1N1 was first reported in Mexico, early this year. Since then it has spread to all the other continents however, experts note that severe effects of the virus only occur in Europe due to climatic differences.

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