Background: H1N1 virus has caused a major pandemic worldwide creating a global havoc. The Infection till now has claimed over 14,000 lives. Even after the declaration of the end of pandemic there are still epidemics & sporadic cases reported from many parts of India, which shows that the lacunae left in the awareness among the people.
Aims & Objective: (1) To find out the awareness regarding H1N1 influenza among urban population of Surendranagar. (2) To elucidate the correlation of the awareness with the socio demographic characteristics.
Material and Methods: Sample selection was by simple random technique & size of the sample was 742. A cross sectional house to house survey was carried out. The obtained data was analyzed using SPSS for windows.
Results: Out of the 742 subjects, 272 were males and 470 females with mean age of 37.31 ± 17.58. Out of the total no. of subjects, only 430 (57.95%) had heard of swine flu. Majority of the families (70.88%) were from Social Class 1 (Modified Prasads Classification). Out of those who had heard of swine flu, 43.48% of the individuals knew that the disease transmission was through Coughing, sneezing and airborne. About 42.99% of subjects knew about the major symptoms like fever, coryza and dyspnoea.
Conclusion: There was a large no. of individuals in the population who had not heard of swine flu, indicating that in spite of the health education; there has been some loophole in conveying the knowledge regarding the disease to the people, showing an urgent need of more large scale IEC activities.
Key words: KAP; H1NI Influenza; IEC; Pandemic; Social Distancing; Respiratory Etiquette
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