Swine flu: Govt to activate 16 more laboratories

New Delhi, Jun 8 (PTI) Sprucing up measures to contain
swine flu, the Indian government Monday said it would activate
16 more laboratories across the country and set up state-level
rapid action forces of medical personnel to deal with the
viral ailment.

After a high-level meeting with senior officials, Union
Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters, "Lot of
arrangements have already been made. Passengers, especially
from the US, Mexico, Dubai and Canada, are being checked on
all the 21 international airports."

But in view of the fact that the disease might acquire
larger proportions, he said the government has decided to
activate 16 more laboratories to test for the swine flu virus
in addition to the existing two in Delhi and Pune.

Azad said special caution has to be taken as the
infection has now in one or two cases spread from human to
human.

"The Health Ministry already has the labs, but they are
for testing different diseases. They would be prepared for
H1N1 flu also and the lab technicians and doctors would be
trained within a week," he said.

The minister said that the government has sent a Rapid
Action team to southern state Andhra Pradesh where the first
human to human transmission of swine flu was reported, but
added that it was not enough.

Azad said, "Creating more teams is not enough as we shall
have to train them. So we have decided at the national level
we have about 25 doctors who are trained in this type of
particular diseases and would in turn train the state-level
teams."

The doctors for the state teams would be trained in a
months's time, he added.

Listing other measures being taken by the ministry, he
said the government has at present 10 lakh capsules of
Oseltamivir which was enough to treat the same number of
patients.

Asked if he was satisfied with the screening process at
the various international airports, he said, "So far around 15
lakh passengers have come to India from the flu-affected
countries. It is not humanly possible to screen all of them.
So we are focusing on people who have declared any symptom of
the disease.

"We are also tracking down all the co-passengers of those
who have tested positive and are testing them for the virus,"
he added.

The minister said there were 10 confirmed cases in the
country and one in the national capital and added that the
government would issue fresh advisories to defer non-essential
travel to the countries affected by the disease. PTI SPC
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