After a spike since October, the number of swine flu and other fever cases had finally begun to show considerable decline for the past couple of weeks in Madurai district, officials in the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine (DPH) said.
According to official data, a total of 115 swine flu positive cases were reported in the district this year, of which one was reported in February while all the remaining cases were reported since October. The number of cases reached a peak towards the end of October and beginning of November.
A senior official from DPH said while 103 new fever cases, which included both swine flu-like and dengue-like cases, were getting reported every day in the first week of November, the same had now come down to 37 fever cases a day.
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Similarly, while there were 367 inpatients getting treated across hospitals in the district by the first week of November, it is now 159 inpatients.
Sources at GRH said that only two swine flu positive cases from Madurai district were being treated at the hospital as on Friday, while the numbers went to even 20 in the first and second weeks of November.
While effective mosquito breeding control measures were cited as the reason for the decline in dengue cases, it was increased awareness and sanitation, particularly among hospitals, that did the trick for swine flu, officials said.
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K.V. Arjun Kumar, Deputy Director of Health Services, Madurai, said that controlling swine flu was challenging compared to dengue. “In case of dengue, it was not contagious and we could simply eradicate mosquito breeding. With swine flu being contagious, we had to contain spreading from person to person,” he said.
Highlighting that hospitals where persons with swine flu symptoms visited were identified as the primary source for the spread of the disease, we did extensive awareness programmes targeting hospital staff. We also made sure that hospitals are kept clean and hospital staff, including doctors, cleaned their hands frequently. Patients visiting the hospitals were also asked clean their hands while leaving the hospital,” he said.
He added that awareness programmes conducted by the district administration, particularly those targeting schools, also proved to be effective.