Thaindian News

Mumbai, Aug 12 (IANS) Reeling under the growing menace of swine flu that has claimed 13 lives in Maharashtra in 10 days, the state government Wednesday admitted the disease was progressing, necessitating a change in strategy to counter it.
In view of the serious situation, health authorities have proposed a change in protocol for treating the large number of patients - either suspects or afflicted - of swine flu, Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Sharvari Gokhale told mediapersons.

The existing protocol is to take a swab of the patient and give them a Tamiflu tablet - he/she is given two tablets if found positive.

“Now, we have proposed to give two tablets at the initial stage itself since we are already aware of all the symptoms of H1N1,” she said.

The issue was discussed with a central health team, which visited Mumbai Wednesday and a final decision will be given by it Thursday.

Gokhale pointed out that Tamiflu is a Schedule X drug, meaning it can be prescribed only under certain conditions since its improper use can result in the virus developing resistance to it and making it ineffective.

The official further said that 22 private hospitals in Mumbai and nine in Pune have come forward to offer treatment facilities for swine flu patients since the government hospitals were getting overcrowded.

“Five of our medical teams are checking out the facilities available at these hospitals, whether they are equipped to treat swine flu, before we take a final decision,” Gokhale said.

Spelling out the requirements, she said treatment centres must have separate entry/exit, no central airconditioning, a distance of at least six feet between two beds, ventilators (for the patients), separate bathrooms, separate doctors’ changing rooms, trained paramedical and support staff, and separate bio-waste disposal facilities, among other conditions.

Some hospitals have said that with a few modifications, they would be able to comply with these requirements.

A few private pharmaceutical companies have also come forward to offer their laboratories for testing the swine flu samples. Among them are Ranbaxy and Metropolis.

Currently, there are only two government testing facilities, one at the NIV Pune and a new one, Haffkine in Mumbai, which are heavily overloaded in view of the high number of cases.

A decision on the issue will be taken by the central government since the testing comes under its purview, Gokhale said.

So far, 42,816 patients have been screened for swine flu across the state of which 484, including 323 in Pune, have been detected positive.

Currently, 77 patients continue to be in hospitals in Mumbai, Pune and Satara. Of these four are critical in Pune and two in Mumbai.

Pune has 42 screening centres while Mumbai has six with more on cards shortly.