Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 7 (IANS) The government has decided to buy cheaper chemicals used for testing influenza A virus from a German-based company since the number of swine flu cases is increasing rapidly in the country, union Health Secretary Naresh Dayal said Friday.
“The government has decided to procure reagents and chemicals used for testing H1N1 from a Germany based company,” Dayal told reporters here.

Till now the government has been procuring the reagents and chemicals from US firm Biosystem.

“The Drug Controller General of India has got in touch with the German-based company. One of their (German company) dealers is in Goa…. The German company is ready to provide the drug at a lower cost,” Dayal added.

On Friday, 96 fresh swine flu cases were reported in the country, taking the total number of cases to 712. Among those tested positive were three doctors in the national capital and an ayurvedia doctor in Pune.

Also, the government assured parliament that it has stocked adequate chemicals to test one crore swine flu suspects and also has 60 lakh doses of Tamiflu to treat those who test positive.

Given the magnitude of the outbreak, the health ministry was getting in touch with leading private hospitals to “seek their cooperation” in the testing process.

The government was also mulling the sale of Tamiflu, hitherto only available in designated government hospitals, in the open market.

Detailing the steps the government has taken to control the spread of the influenza A (H1N1) virus, union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told the Rajya Sabha besides the 574 suspected carriers who had so far been tested, another 7,000 air passengers who were suspected to have travelled in their vicinity had been located through contact testing.

“Had we not contacted these 7,000 people and ensured that they were free of the disease, the number of cases might have been seven million because that is how fast it spreads,” Azad pointed out.

“WHO (World Health Organisation) threw up its hands July 6. We didn’t, and are not going to. Today, one day and one month later, we are ahead of everyone in testing and tracing patients,” he said.

In this context, he noted that from just two laboratories, the number of testing centres has now been raised to 19.

Responding to a supplementary, Azad said each test costs a minimum of Rs.5,000 while for those that returned positive the cost was Rs.10,000.

“It takes a minimum of six hours for a test to return positive,” he added.