Health director admits five deaths due to swine flu

Raipur, October 17, 2012

Health director Dr Kamalpreet Singh has admitted of five deaths due to swine flu in last seven months. “Yes, by far five swine flu patients have died out of 13 in Chhattisgarh,” he said while interacting with the media persons on Wednesday.

He informed that swine flu reappeared in state in April 2012. “Since then, the government hospitals have sent 86 samples for test to New Delhi. The reports of 71 samples have been received of which ten were found positive. Similarly, private hospitals conducted test of several samples in private laboratories that reported three samples positive. This is how, 13 cases of swine flu were found positive of which five succumbed to the disease,” he added.

He further informed that the majority of the swine flu suspects belonged to Raipur and Bilaspur districts. However, he expressed concern over rising swine flu cases in the state.

“We have made adequate arrangements to create awareness among people about swine flu. While teams of doctors are conducting contact surveillance of the family members of swine flu patients, instructions have been given to the CMOs, health officials and medical colleges to not only inform people about preventive measures of this disease, but also to make sufficient arrangement of treatment for the patients,” he said.

“The Centre has provided necessary medicines for treatment of swine flu and we have sent them to the three medical colleges, district CMOs and Civil Surgeons according to their requirements,” he added.

“Besides, one can fetch information about treatment of swine flu, laboratory test of sample and test report from Integrated Disease Surveillance Project (IDSP) unit by contacting over phone,” he said.

On continuous scams in smart cards, Singh said the Health department conducts probe on receiving complaint. “There is also a toll free number on which one can lodge complaint about any irregularity in smart card,” he said adding that smart card system had been effectively implemented in the state and in last two years about 1.25 lakh eligible candidates had taken its benefit.