Northern India might have more swine flu cases: health official

Via Deccan Herald :

" Due to heavy rains in coming months, northern parts of India might have more cases of H1N1 viral infection in the second pandemic phase and the doctors may need to adopt a different strategy for treating such cases, a top public health official has said.


"With Kerala experience, we are now advocating to all doctors across the country, especially in northern parts of India where good rainfall is expected in the coming months, should strictly follow government public health policies and use ABC management guidelines," Dr Amar Fettle, Chief Nodal Officer, H1N1 control programme, Kerala, said during the day-long seminar on 'Swine Flu H1N1--Flu Fears' held at Nair hospital yesterday.

The northern states must be prepared with the 'surge' capacity -- to put the large number of patients -- and with the state-of-the-art labs for testing as well, he said.
"Do not wait for the test results to start the treatment as it would be late for the patient.If the symptoms are clear, immediately start start treating the cases for H1N1," Fettle said.

Out of the 75 deaths during this second wave of H1N1 infection in the state of Kerala, 21 were pregnant women.

"Therefore, we appeal to all gynaecologists also to follow the public health policies to save several pregnant women from dying," he said.

The virus is more prevalent in the population in the second stage and so the treatment will begin even before the sample test results are available, unlike the first phase.
"In the first phase, we had to adopt different methods like keeping a vigil at entry ports, keeping lot of isolation wards and sending all the samples for testing and then start the treatment. But the strategy now is to strictly follow the public health policy and start the treatment even before the test results are available," he told PTI."