Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao has asked people not to panic over HMPV cases detected in two infants in Bengaluru. Addressing media persons in Bengaluru today, he said, Human Metapneumovirus cases were due to the old virus that are not known to cause death. This, he pointed out, is a respiratory virus that causes common cold and flu and is not known to be fatal. He clarified that HMP virus accounts for only one per cent of all Influenza-like illness reported through routine surveillance carried out by ICMR. He further added that the two cases of HPMV in three and eight-month-old infants in a private hospital in Bengaluru were harmless as both the children are stable and one among them discharged from the hospital. Dinesh Gundu Rao informed that the outbreak in China was not linked to the cases reported in Bengaluru. He however said that the global trends are being tracked closely and surveillance will continue as a norm.