VISHAKAPATNAM: A 29-year-old doctor of the Indian Naval Hospital Ship (INHS) Kalyani, tested positive for swine flu on Saturday, taking the victim count from north Andhra districts to 42.
Another 40-year-old doctor of the INHS was detected with the symptoms last month, and health officials suspect that the 29-year-old doctor might have contracted the infection from the hospital.
Blaming the spread of the virus from private hospitals due to lack of adequate quarantine measures, Visakhapatnam district nodal officer for swine flu, L Kalyan Prasad said, "As many as 44 positive cases were reported from the district in 2015. It is less when compared to the previous years. We suspect that the virus is spreading from private hospitals."
Prasad blamed it on the lack of information given by hospitals to victims regarding the details of the infection."The victims are not giving proper information such as the details about the places they had visited prior to developing symptoms of swine flu," he added.
In a majority of the cases, the patients approach private hospitals in the eleventh hour. "Lack of adherence to the quarantine norms is resulting in the spread of the virus. Though we are yet to conduct a detailed study on the spread of the virus, we suspect that another virus is helping H1N1 spread fast," he said.
There have been 206 suspected cases of swine flu reported since January 2017, and 32 cases have been reported from Vizag city.