The inordinate delay in reporting of the swine flu cases in the state has made mockery of the health department’s claim of making all preparation to deal with the dreaded disease. Shockingly, the sample reports of 11 out of 15 people who have so far lost their lives to the disease in this season have arrived after their deaths.
Take the case of little Pari (Name changed), a four year old girl of Chinyalisaud in Uttarkashi district. She was admitted in a private hospital of Dehradun on August 6, where she died on August 9. Her blood sample was sent to National Centre of Disease Control (NCDC) by district health authorities on August 9 and the report which found her positive for the disease arrived three days after the girl’s death. Pari is not alone as reports of 11 other patients arrived after their deaths.
The district health department has so far sent samples of 243 suspected patients of the disease to Delhi based NCDC and out of them 97 cases have been found positive for the disease. The delay in arrival of reports of these cases has resulted in a situation where either the patients dies or gets recuperated from the disease by the time reports arrives.
The delay in arrival of reports of swine flu tests from Delhi is causing problems to the health department officials, doctors treating these patients and their anxious family members. It is learnt that the NCDC is so packed up with samples of suspected patients these days that the process of tests and sending the reports is taking unusually more time.
The district in charge of integrated disease Surveillance programme, Dr Puneet Chandra said that there is no set pattern in availability of the reports. Sometimes the reports arrive within two to three days and in some cases it takes six to seven days, he said.
The health department officials however claim that the delay in reporting of samples does not make much difference in treatment of the patients as the treatment of the disease is based on the symptoms and starts immediately.
Taking cognisance of the delay in reporting of samples of the swine flu cases, the advisor, health services to the Chief Minister, Dr Naveen Baluni recently had said that the swine flu test facility should be set up in the Government Doon Medical College (GDMC). When contacted, the Principal of GDMC, Dr Pradeep Bharati Gupta told The Pioneer that the college has sent the proposal for the swine flu lab in the department of Microbiology to the state administration for clearance.