NAGAPATTINAM: Health services officials in Nagapattinam reached out to private hospitals seeking their co-operation in tackling dengue in the district. Doctors from private hospitals across the district were called for a meeting to discuss coordination between private and government hospitals. “The participation of private hospitals is a must. We expect them to work with from diagnosis to the recovery. Private hospitals can treat a patient after the diagnosis in government hospitals, but they must also make sure the patient makes it through the recovery phase without a relapse,” said R Kala, Joint Director of Health Services.
A total of 63 doctors from private hospitals and 41 from government facilities took part in the meeting. Health officials warned against treatment with rapid diagnostic tests such as the Non-Structural Protein 1 (NS1) antigen test, otherwise known as ‘Card Test’ and said to go for the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) test. “Private hospitals which do not have ELISA readers must refer patients to government hospitals,” said R Mahendran, Deputy Director of Health Services.
Officials said that Nagapattinam is tenth in the list of highest number of dengue positive cases after Thiruvallur, Kanchipuram, Cuddalore, villupuram, Tiruvannamalai, Thanajvaur, Tiruppur, Ramanathapuram, and Namakkal.
Nagapattinam ranks tenth in the list of the highest number of dengue cases with 8,000 fever cases in September. There have been nine dengue cases in the past two months.