While there was no need for people to get panicky about swine flu, there was every need for them to be cautious, experts said.
Chairman of a corporate hospital Y. Ramesh Babu said that those suffering from cough and cold should not cough or sneeze in the open.
Tissue paper
They should have a handkerchief, tissue paper was even better because it could be disposed of safely. He said that only 0.1 per cent of the persons infected by swine flu faced situations that were life threatening.
Pulmonologist with a corporate hospital M.S. Gopalakrishna said that persons infected by swine flu were contagious for seven days and H1N1 virus was active for two hours in the droplets that are sneezed or coughed out by a patient.
Three categories
He said those infected by swine flu could be classified into three categories. ‘A’ category patients with mild fever, cough, sour throat, body and headache, diarrhoea and vomiting should be treated symptomatically.
Home isolation
‘B’ category patients with high grade fever and severe sour throats along with all the other symptoms of ‘A’ category patients required home isolation and treatment with Oseltamivir (Tamiflu).
‘C’ category patients with all the above symptoms combined with breathlessness, chest pain, bluish discolouration of nails, etc. should be hospitalised. Specialist in Internal Medicine C. Padma who worked in the USA when swine flu became a pandemic (2009) said only patients who required hospitalisation need to be tested for swine flu.
A corporate hospital managing director and specialist in critical care Padma Movva said all suspected cases of swine flu were being treated with Oseltamivir, because facilities for detecting the specific flu was not available in Vijayawada.
Early treatment better
The earlier treatment was started with the specific anti-viral, better the results, she said.
