7-month-old is the latest victim of H1N1
POSTED August 19, 2009 - 17:52 | POSTED BY Priya Markanda
Last edited by Sham Kamboj on August 19, 2009 - 17:52
“Modia Mohammad Shaikh, a resident of Byculla, died at Noor hospital early today,” informed Additional Municipal Commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
Shaikh was being treated at a private hospital and was being administered Tamiflu drug.
Fehmida Panwalla, who passed away on August 8 at Kasturba Hospital, was the first casualty reported in the city.
The Byculla family, feels that the child may have contracted the infection from the hospital itself as Syed Dorjiwala, 63(the second casualty) died in the same hospital.
Health officials however have ruled out this possibility as there was a gap of four days between Dorjiwala’s death and the baby’s admission.
Airport screening, a wasted effort
99 fresh infections reported across the country took the total tally to 2,026. Of these, Mumbai has reported 10 cases.
According to the data shown by the Union Ministry of Health, entry screening at various airports has been a wasted effort.
Of the total 10,578 persons screened, mere 773 were identified through entry screening at the airports. It is just 7.3 percent of the total numbers infected in the country.
From among the rest, 1,644 people were traced through contact tracing (where a person who is in touch with that person who has contracted H1N1 virus), and another 8,161 were reported positive, after voluntarily check-up when they developed flu-like symptoms.
Measures being taken to curb the menace
The process of assessing the private labs is on its full swing, informed experts from National Centre of Disease Control (NCDC), which along with National Institute of Virology was declared the nodal centre for swine flu testing, before India’s first A(H1N1) case was confirmed.
Six doctors i.e. Dr Lal Path labs, Quest Diagnostics, Auro Probe, Piramal Diagnostics, Religare SRL and Era Health, have been shortlisted for testing for H1N1. These physicians went through a training session with the NCDC Saturday.
An NCDC official was quoted as saying, “Along with testing H1N1 samples for the government at a subsided prices, these labs would also test samples on their own. We’re fixing a price for government samples, but they will be free to charge what they want from people who want to get tests done in the private sector.”
Currently, A(H1N1) tests are done in three labs, i.e. NCDC, AIIMS, and Patel Chest Institute in Delhi.
