He said the emphasis was earlier on providing testing facilities, but now it is focused on capacity building, diagnosis and treatment.

When asked whether the union health ministry was satisfied with the state government's work, he said: 'Health is a state subject.'

However, he said that if the health ministry was happy with the state-level capacity building to deal with swine flu spread, then there would have been no meeting with the state authorities.

'The centre's job is not just to show dissatisfaction but provide coordination and interventions when needed,' he added.

Srivastava said they are also examining the clinical behaviour of the virus. Initial findings have shown that while earlier the disease was mild and the person would recover soon, now its behaviour has changed.

'The disease is more likely to stay and worsen. The disease came four months ago and it is no longer novel anymore, so states should make efforts and focus on building capacity and infrastructure for treatment,' he added.

Shiv Lal, the director of National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), which was earlier known as National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), said: 'About 16 private labs will be assisting in the testing of the H1N1 and we have identified more government centres.'

These new testing centres are - Defence Research and Development Establishment (DRDO), Gwalior, Rajiv Gandhi Center for Biotechnology, Thiruvananthapuram and National Institute of Immunology in New Delhi.

He said in the meeting between union Health Minister Ghualam Nabi Azad and the state health ministers Aug 21, it was found that the northeast states do not have adequate infrastructure to tackle the problem.

'So we have sent six ventilators to northeastern states - two each for Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland,' he added.

He said since the seven northeastern states have no testing centres, they have asked the state public health authorities to coordinate with the Kolkata and Pune NCDC centres.