NUNAVUT - The number of Nunavummiut infected with swine flu has exploded in the past week, from less than a dozen to almost 150 as of press time.

Territorial health officials continue to state that although the H1N1 influenza virus is spreading quickly, it seems to be a mild form of flu. Most patients are recovering at home, according to Nunavut's chief medical officer Dr. Isaac Sobol.

Nunavut chief medical officer of health Dr. Isaac Sobol, left, and Minister of Health Tagak Curley - Gabriel Zarate/NNSL photo

He said the cases are in the Kivalliq and Kitikmeot regions, with 40 per cent in the Kivalliq and 60 per cent in the Kitikmeot. Health officials still will not say which communities are most affected, but said the number of new cases in those communities is slowing down.

When asked why the specific communities were not being revealed, Sobol said the standard precautions against flu should be taken regardless whether a particular community has been affected.

So far, no cases have been confirmed in the Baffin region.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization declared the spread of the new flu had become a global pandemic, with 30,000 cases in 74 countries. Every province and territory in Canada has reported cases of the H1N1 flu, except for Newfoundland. At press time, there had been close to 3,000 cases of the illness in Canada and four deaths.

Other strains of seasonal flu kill about 4,000 Canadians every year.

Sobol said a part of the jump in infection statistics in Nunavut was due to increased testing. Usually health workers test only one person out of every five who reports flu-like symptoms to a local health centre. Because of the level of concern over H1N1, the department has been testing every single person who reports flu-like symptoms.

"One of the reasons we've got increased numbers is because we instituted advanced surveillance," he said. "Since the beginning of the month we've tested every person so our numbers are going to look disproportionately higher than those jurisdictions that didn’t do advanced surveillance."

Sobol also said the rise in numbers in the past week reflects testing done about a week previously, on patients who have since recovered.

"This doesn't mean that more people are getting sick now," Sobol said. "The health centres have reported they're seeing less patients."

Sobol said he anticipated the number of reported infections would continue to rise over the next week or two, then drop as people recovering from the illness develop immunity to the new flu strain.

The department will resume its normal one in five monitoring system on June 15.

He said the main purpose of the testing has been to track the spread of the flu strain, and it does not influence the course of treatment.

"It won't cause any problem or lack of information for treatment," Sobol said. "We need to treat people before we have any lab-confirmed information. It takes several days before we get the results back, so those results don’t change our treatments in any way and also it doesn’t change what people have to do to protect themselves."

Sobol said Nunavut's Department of Health and Social Services has a lot of experience with infectious respiratory diseases, more so than other parts of Canada.

"I think Nunavut is better prepared than any," he said. "We have seen severe respiratory disease year after year in our communities."

He said conditions in Nunavut such as overcrowded housing are factors in the spread of any contagious illness in the territory.

"Certainly the background socio-economic conditions that are present in Nunavut we believe might contribute to the spread of any communicable disease, H1N1 being one of them," he said. "Overcrowded housing conditions, poverty, potentially poor nutrition, smoking in the home, all of those can be risk factors for spread of communicable disease."

Sobol said people should take the normal precautions against viral infections: wash your hands frequently, cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze or cough and stay at home away from other people if you are not feeling well.

Nunavut is one of the few jurisdictions in Canada where the flu vaccination is available to anyone for free. Sobol urged all Nunavummiut to get a flu shot in the fall, whether or not there is a vaccination available for H1N1 by then. It normally takes about six months to produce a vaccine for a new kind of flu, Sobol said.