The death of a man, reportedly due to swine flu (H1N1), has once again put the focus on the dreaded disease, which is spreading panic among the people whenever there is an outbreak.
Doctors, however, refuse to confirm it as swine flu death.
“He also had other complications besides swine flu and we can declare it as death due to swine flu only when the person dies after being affected by swine flu alone,” said a medical officer.
The most distressing part of swine flu is that it can be confused with normal flu as both have similar symptoms.
Coming to the testing part, though Visakhapatnam has a virology lab at Andhra Medical College (AMC), the meagre allocation of funds and shortage of ‘testing kits’ are coming in the way of its effective functioning.
“An amount of Rs. 2 lakh was sanctioned under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) last year, which did not suffice our requirements in view of the growing number of samples being sent for collection. The testing kits have to be procured from Chennai and they supply the kits only after payment of advance. Last time I gave personal guarantee only after which the kits were supplied but I cannot do it every time,” AMC Principal P.V. Sudhakar said when the issue of shortage of kits at the lab was brought to his notice.
“The IDSP authorities have advised us to utilise the Hospital Development Society Fund. This cannot be done without the permission of the government. The lab is also undertaking the testing of samples coming from cases admitted at private hospitals also but it may no longer be possible to do so,” says Dr. Sudhakar.
The Government Hospital for Chest and Communicable Diseases (GHCCD) has two ventilators and isolation wards for treatment of swine flu patients but the complaint from patients and their relatives is that they are far from adequate to meet the growing requirements.
‘Enough ventilators’
“The existing ventilators are enough to meet the present needs as we get not more than two cases of swine flu on an average every day. Preference is given to swine flu patients over others as there are small ventilators to take care of other cases,” says GHCCD Superintendent G. Sambasiva Rao.
“In view of the shortage of testing kits we are sending the swabs to the virology lab at Tirupati for testing. There are delays in getting the reports due to courier and other problems. A total of 47 cases have tested ‘positive’ in the district so far this year,” says the Swine Flu Nodal Officer L. Kalyan Prasad.
