Hyderabad: Spurt in swine flu cases, govt lags on test centres

Amrita Didyala / TNN / Updated: Jul 15, 2019, 08:40 IST

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With 15 new swine flu cases reported over the past two weeks and 1,227 cases recorded till July 7, experts at the National Centre for Disease Control said the virus could continue to spread rapidly. Last year, 1,007 H1N1 cases were detected with 28 deaths in the state. This year, 20 deaths have already been reported so far.

Hyderabad: Spurt in swine flu cases, govt lags on test centres

(Representative image)

HYDERABAD: With 15 new swine flu cases reported over the past two weeks and 1,227 cases recorded till July 7, experts at the National Centre for Disease Control said the virus could continue to spread rapidly. Last year, 1,007 H1N1 cases were detected with 28 deaths in the state. This year, 20 deaths have already been reported so far.
“With the swine flu season barely a month away, the state health department will have to race against time to set up more swine up wards across district headquarters to deal with the cases,” said a senior expert.

Spurt in swine flu cases, govt lags on test centres

Typically swine cases are reported during the month of September and the virus activity peaks between October to December, occasionally stretching up to the month of January too. However, this year cases have already started to pour in, underscoring the requirement of early preventive preparation.

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In view of the increasing number of swine flu cases, the health department should immediately set up more testing centres to ease the load at Fever hospital and IPM. Special isolation wards and adequate supplies of tamiflu must be kept ready anticipating a major breakout of the virus in the city. Test centres should be set up in rural areas as well to stop patients from travelling to Hyderabad in large numbers and help contain the virus from

While last year, the new testing centre at Fever hospital became functional, this year no concrete plans have been made so far.
With a surge in cases last year, an additional testing machine was placed at the Institute of Preventive Medicine (IPM) to be able to keep up with the increasing load of samples being sent to the lab per day.
The IPM Lab along with the lab at Fever hospital is capable of testing around 450 samples per day currently. The previous plan of setting up a testing centre at Warangal has been abandoned.

In the absence of more localized testing centres, handling and transportation of the swab samples adds to the threat of spread of the disease.
“H1N1 is a highly contagious virus. The samples need to be collected and transported as per strict protocol which is why it was initially planned to have more testing centres, so that the chances of spread of the virus during transportation could be cut down. The plan however never took off due to logistic reasons,” said a senior official from the state health department.
The health department has set itself a target to enhance the capacity of isolation wards in some of the district hospitals, added the official.

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