VIJAYAWADA: Since January 2017 till date, total 15 swine flu cases have been registered in Krishna district. As monsoon season is prevailing, district health officials are taking up various initiatives to deal with the cases. Recently a special swine flu ward, equipped with eight beds and an isolated chamber was inaugurated in Government General Hospital in Vijayawada for this purpose.
District health department officials are making arrangements for treating the H1N1 cases in the city. This monsoon, no cases of swine flu have been registered so far. However the department is gearing up with test kits, swabs set and required medicines. Till date, there are only three testing centers across the state-in Guntur, Tirupati and Visakhapatnam.
Nasal and throat swabs of the patients are sent either to Tirupati or Guntur testing center to check the presence of H1N1 virus. As it takes a lot of time to transport the swabs to those centres and delays reports, officials are trying to get a testing center in Krishna district to treat swine flu cases faster and better.
In the last two swine flu deaths which took place in the district, the reports reached the hospital after the death of the patients. As the VRDL in Guntur was set up recently with modernised technology, the regular swabs cannot be tested in that equipment. So the officials sent them to Tirupati. Presently, a swab set from Krishna district is sent to Guntur VRDL to check if the swab is H1N1 positive and then it is sent back to Krishna district with the results of the test.
“Till now, there are no active H1N1 virus and we don’t think that it would be on high scale in the region. The district is on a tropical side and the virus cannot sustain or spread in this region. However, we are prepared and all arrangements are in place,” said epidemiologist T Nageswararao.