About 65 per cent of persons who died due to swine flu at the SMS Hospital and College here this January and February, also had a “high risk factor” involved. They all suffered from other chronic diseases including diabetes, TB and chronic lung disorder, a study has revealed.
A team of doctors led by Rama Sharma, Professor of Medicine at SMS Hospital and College has published a research paper titled “Profiling the Mortality due to Influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Jaipur during the Current Season - January & February 2015” in the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India .
Of the 412 serious swine flu patients admitted to the SMS Hospital here, 76 succumbed to the H1N1 virus, of which 65 per cent were in the high risk category and suffering from other chronic diseases like diabetes, lung disorder, or TB or were pregnant, Dr. Sharma said today.
Research suggested that a rejig of the existing guidelines was needed to identify and treat influenza like illness at the national level, he said. Factors that promote its rapid progression - especially in a group without any predisposing risk condition - should form the focus of future studies, he added.
“As risk group individuals formed a major chunk of deaths, the need to vaccinate this group should form a scaffold on which future directions and interventions have to be built up to combat the morbidity and mortality,” he added. Dr. Sharma stressed that vaccination against H1N1 was a must for such high risk patients having diabetes, chronic lung disorder or TB, and pregnant woman.
A total of 5,528 laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1 were recorded in the state of Rajasthan during the two months from January 1, 2015 to February 28, 2015, out of which a total of 285 deaths occurred due to the current circulating strain.
