Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 7 (IANS) India Friday said there was no need to panic about the swine flu virus that has killed one and infected over 600 people in the country.
Union Health Secretary Naresh Dayal said the government is decentralising the availability of the Tamiflu drugs in the country so that there is no paucity and is ready to allow private laboratories to conduct the test provided they have the facilities.

“Lot of panic has been created in the last two days, especially since the death of the girl in Pune. There is no cause for our population and people to go into panic mode,” Dayal told a press conference here.

Reeda Shaikh died in Pune Monday and health officials blamed her death to “delayed treatment”.

“The virus is relatively less virulent strain of the flu. In fact, it is less virulent than the seasonal flu, which causes more deaths than this (swine flu) causes,” Dayal added.

But he added that they are more worried about this virus because there is no vaccine. “We do not have a vaccine for it. We have treatment for it, which is Tamiflu. It is a curable disease and not an incurable one,” he said.

“We don’t have any shortage of testing facility. We have plenty of Tamiflu to treat people and we are decentralising the supply further to the district level by providing them a stockpile for 1,000 persons at any point to time,” he added.

He said a city which has a population of over one million plus will get one thousand Tamiflu tablets, and cities that reported more cases like Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore will get 10,000 Tamiflu tablets. “We will be rolling it out soon. We will be soon placing a fresh order for 10 million tamiflu medicines,” he added.

Dayal said those who genuinely have the virus should come forward for the tests and not the frivolous ones. He said one test that turns out to be negative costs them Rs.5,000 and Rs.10,000 if it is positive.

He said: “We have never stopped private laboratories from conducting the tests. They should do it if they are equipped. We are considering allowing those private laboratories which have the facilities. We are going to accreditise private labs based on their capacity to test H1N1 virus.”

But the patient if found positive will have to go to a designated government facility for treatment, he said.

He cited the example of Ruby hospital in Pune that conducted the test of Reeda Shaikh, the girl who died due to swine flu. The hospital had said she tested negative for swine flu, although the National Institute of Virology confirmed her as positive.

Dayal said they are also worried because the virus attacks young people.

“This virus attacks more people who are younger. Our analyses have shown largest number of patients are in the age group of 10 to 14 years. Our population and people should not panic as India sees more neo-natal deaths,” he added.

He said India has so far reported 615 influenza A cases, of which 129 people are in the age group 10-14, while 117 are in the age group of 20-29 and 100 in the age group of 15-19 years.

“Over the three months time, out of 615 cases, 418 have been sent home, rest are in hospital for treatment. We have far less people affected with the flu as compared to developed country like the UK, the US, Australia, Japan, Thailand and Singapore,” he added.

He said the virus affecting school children obviously worries them as it is a perfect setting for the virus to spread easily to other children.

The secretary said they have told Pune health authorities to ensure that there is no large gathering in front of one health facility and that other government hospitals should also provide testing facility to people.

“The government has also asked states to identify more testing centres,” he said.