7 Aug : The Centre on Friday issued fresh guidelines to states asking them to increase the designated hospitals for treatment besides allowing private hospitals to treat patients and setting up helplines to provide information as three Doctors in Delhi have tested positive.
In a letter to the Chief Secretaries of all states and Union Territories, Health Secretary Naresh Dayal said it is necessary to identify more hospitals for examination and collection of samples of suspect cases of swine flu.
He asked the states to operationalise helplines where people can call up to seek information or report outbreaks.
Dayal also asked state governments to increase the number of hospitals designated for treatment of positive cases of swine flu and allow private hospitals to treat such patients.”It, however, needs to be ensured that such hospitals have appropriate isolation facilities and the requisite stock of Personal Protective Equipments (PPE),” Dayal said in the letter.
He also assured the states that the Centre will increase the supply of PPEs.More than 600 people have been afflicted with the disease across the country till now.
Swine flu under control, says Health Minister Azad
The Government on Friday assured Parliament that swine flu was under control due to continued efforts of doctors and was limited to only a few individuals.
“We have managed to limit such cases to a few individuals, considering the size of our population and country,” Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told Rajya Sabha during Question Hour.
Seeking to allay fears of the common man about the disease, he said “there are guidelines and constant review of the situation is being done.”
He said though one swine flu test costs Rs 10,000, it was being done free in 19 laboratories across the country.
“We managed to identify positive cases (around 7,000) and put them on Tamiflu. This way we managed to limit the number of positive cases, otherwise this figure would have multiplied to seven million. I would like to give credit to our doctors,” Azad said.
He said government has kept a stock of one crore Tamiflu doses ready and added that if there was a need for open sale of the medicine, it will be done as and when necessary.
Azad said the government has already trained doctors at the state level and has instructed states to train doctors at the district level also for tackling the virus.
Describing the death of 14-year old Pune girl Rida Sheikh due to swine flu as “unfortunate”, Azad said timely medication could have saved her.
“The death of the girl was unfortunate, however there was a mistake from both sides. Timely medication could have saved her,” he said.
The girl went to three private practitioners and her diagnosis was not done on time, he said adding no deaths had been reported before this case.
The minister said that out of around 600 identified cases of swine flu in the country, 470 have been discharged after medication.
Two swine flu patients in serious condition in Pune
Two men, including a doctor, suffering from swine flu have been admitted in a serious condition in a hospital in Pune, taking the total number of cases in Pune, one of the worst-hit by the virus, to 120.
A doctor, who works with Inlaks hospital in camp area, was admitted to the ICU in Sassoon General Hospital after he tested positive for the virus, according to R R Pardeshi, civic medical officer.
Doctors attending on him have described his condition as serious.
A 35-year-old Swine flu patient was on Thursday night admitted to the same hospital in a critical condition.
The patient, brought from private Nobel Hospital in Hadapsar area, has been put on ventilator, Dr R R Pardeshi, Civic Medical Officer, said.
The patient was seen in civic Naidu Hospital on Wednesday where this throat swabs were taken for H1N1 testing and taken back to Nobel Hospital in an ambulance. After his blood samples tested positive for swine flu at NIV on Friday, he was immediately taken to the isolation ward of Sassoon General Hospital, Pardeshi said.
Dr Pardeshi said the patient had no information on “contributory history” of infection, meaning there was no known positive contact responsible for transmission.
A 14-year-old girl died of swine flu here on Monday, becoming the first victim of the disease in India.
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