AWARNESS OF SWINE FLU IN AN URBAN AREA OF SOUTH WEST ANDHRA PRADESH

The 2009 flu pandemic is a global outbreak of a new strain of H1N1 influenza virus, often referred to colloquially as "swine flu"(SF). The virus contains combination of genes from swine, avian (bird), and human influenza viruses. Currently, there are 14,286 confirmed deaths worldwide. This figure is the sum of confirmed deaths reported by national authorities and the WHO. It states that total mortality from the new H1N1 strain is "unquestionably higher" than this. In different areas of megacities, where awareness about swine flu is more because people are regularly in touch with swine flu related propaganda, advertisement, Magazines, Television, etc. Nevertheless, it is not the case in urban area where AWARENESS is very low when compared to mega cities. Therefore, to assess the extent of awareness amongst the people a survey was performed in the urban area of south west Andhra Pradesh. For the experimental work a questionnaire was prepared and according to the data obtained they are categorized into three categories - Category- I, completely aware about SF (CI), Category – II, Partially aware about SF(C-II), Category – III, completely unaware about SF (C-III). Again, extent of awareness about SF amongst different age groups was studied. The number of population (233) selected randomly in an urban place of south west Andhra and survey was performed with help of carefully designed questionnaire. According to age group, it has been found that the extent of awareness about Swine flu was more in the age group between 25 to 40 years than any other age group.