Background
During the spring of 2009, a pandemic of novel flu, popularly called swine flu, emerged in Mexico and spread globally. We describe the profile of the patients who were hospitalised with the flu in two large government hospitals in Bangalore. After warnings of flu outbreak, these two hospitals were identified initially for screening and treatment for novel flu.

Method
 A retrospective review of clinical records is reported. Data including the common clinical features, underlying medical condition and treatment outcome of 112 patients admitted with novel flu to two government hospitals in Bangalore from June to November 15, was collected.

Results
61 (54.4%) of the patients were in the age group 16–35 years, 69 (61.6%) were males, 41 (36%) presented within two days of symptoms, 93 (83%) presented with fever, 81 (72.3%) presented with cough and 37 (33%) with breathlessness. The data suggests that 17% of the patients had history of travel to novel flu affected areas, 6.2% both travel and contact. For majority of patients, the duration of stay in the hospital was 4–6 days (51.7%), 12 (10.7%) had history of underlying co morbid conditions. In the study, 19 (16.9%) were treated with steroids, 31 (27.6%) were admitted to an ICU (intensive care unit)
and 26 (23.2%) died all aged 16–35 years.

Conclusion
In our study, majority of the patients were 16–35 years old, presented to the hospital within two days with fever, cough and breathlessness as the predominant symptoms and less than half of them had history of travel or contact. Most of the patients recovered, and death was reported in 23.2% of the patients.