The recent spell of rain has come as a dampener for the district officials of health department who were hoping that cases of swine flu would decrease with a rise in temperature. The rains have caused drop in temperature bringing it down to the conducive temperature range for the virus to spread. The spell of rain which lasted for three days till Monday ensured that the maximum temperature in the State capital dipped by five notches. The maximum temperature is now hovering around 25 degree centigrade which experts believe is suited for H1N1 the virus of Swine Flu to proliferate.
On Tuesday, one more patient was found positive for the disease taking the number of swine flu cases to 15 in the state capital. The District in-charge of integrated disease surveillance programme, Dr Madan Bonal told The Pioneer that the patient whose sample was found positive on Tuesday was admitted in the Max hospital. It is learnt that when the district health department officials contacted the hospital they were told that the patient has recuperated and is now discharged from the hospital. Dr Bonal said that 45 samples of the suspected patients were collected for swine flu test out of which 15 samples were found positive for the disease. Dehradun with four deaths due to the disease till date is the most affected district with Swine flu in the State.
The beleaguered district health department officials appeared relaxed when the mercury started heading towards north in the first week of March as they hoped that the virus would gradually become ineffective with increase in temperature. However their hopes were dashed by a spell of rains which started on Saturday.
The experts believe that that for the district health department which seems to be fighting a losing battle on swine flu front, the recent spell of rains is bad news as an increase in number of patients is now on cards. They however stressed on maintaining personal hygiene to prevent the infection from spreading further.
Swine flu is a viral diseases, its virus is also called H1 N1 and its genetic analysis has shown that it has originated from the animals specially pigs hence it is called Swine flu. The virus spreads from person to person similar to that of seasonal influenza.