Petitioner questions H1N1 preparedness

AHMEDABAD: The petitioner who had sought immediate action by the administration to curb the spread of swine flu, on Monday accused the deputy director for epidemics in the health commissioner’s office, Dinkar Rawal, of misleading the high court by providing unnecessary data on epidemics. In an affidavit, Manaswi Thapar, the petitioner, told the Gujarat high court that details of swine flu cases in other states are not significant to fighting the spread of the disease in Gujarat.
He highlighted that there are only nine laboratories to test for swine flu in Gujarat and three of them are in Ahmedabad district.
Thus, more than 20 districts that do not have this facility. This shows that there are inadequate facilities to deal with the problem in the state. The petitioner also criticized the government’s claims of treating swine flu patient with an ayurvedic kwath (concoction). He maintained that proper and timely treatment is required or the disease proves to be fatal for the patient.
The government claimed to have visited 3,87,980 persons in the state, but it is silent on the distribution of drugs to them, Thapar said.
It was also highlighted that the health officer was silent on the availability of isolation wards at hospitals and working ventilators, even though these are indispensable in swine flu treatment.
By presenting details provided by the epidemics branch, the petitioner questioned earlier details placed by the government before the HC. As on October 21, 2018, there were a total of 1,629 H1N1 cases and 51 deaths in the state. The government told the HC that there had been 1,156 cases and 36 deaths due to swine flu last year. Yet, the government insisted that there was a decline in the number of cases.
The court posted a further hearing on the issue for Thursday, said K R Koshti, the petitioner’s advocate.
17 new swine flu cases, 9 in city
Of the 17 new cases of swine flu reported in the state on Monday, nine were reported from Ahmedabad city. According to AMC officials, one person died of swine flu in October. There were reports of death of a woman because of swine flu in a private hospital in Maninagar on Sunday, but medical health officer Bhavin Solanki said that the civic body has not received any such report. He said 252 cases were reported in September at an average of eight cases a day. In October, 182 cases have already been reported at nine cases in a day. There have been 28 deaths in the city since January 1. Of this, 18 deaths were reported in September.