Swine flu: cell at airport

The district health administration has opened a health cell and control room at the Thiruvananthapuram international airport on the basis of a directive from the Union Ministry of Health to step up surveillance and preparedness following the alert on influenza A/H1NI infection caused by a re-assorted swine flu virus.The control room, with a 10-member team of doctors and health inspectors, started functioning on May 1 evening. It will take up the surveillance of passengers reaching the city from other countries. The current team will be on duty till May 19.The district health administration officials said they had asked the airport authorities to give directives to employees to identify and detain passengers who had been in the past 10 days to countries where swine flu had been reported and who might be having fever, cough, sore throat, body ache and respiratory distress. Essentially, it is passengers from Canada, Austria, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, U.S. and Mexico who will be under surveillance. The Union Health Ministry instituted the series of preventive actions, including surveillance at posts and international airports and surveillance through the Integrated Disease Surveillance Project units in States, after the WHO raised the pandemic alert on Influenza A/H1N1 from Phase 4 to Phase 5, implying wide-spread human infection.  The Health Department has convened a special meeting of the Rapid Response Team, consisting of medical experts and senior officials of other departments such as Animal Husbandry, Tourism and Railway and Airport authorities, on Saturday to assess the preparedness measures and to plan the action ahead on the basis of official guidelines. According to the directive from the Centre, any suspected cluster of influenza – like illness in the State should be investigated by the Rapid Response Team and managed in isolation facility with strict infection control practices.The swine flu clinical management protocol and infection control guidelines issued by the Union Health Ministry has already been despatched by the Health Department to district health administrations and Medical Colleges, to be widely disseminated among doctors and technical staff. The medical supplies — Oseltamivir capsules, personal protection equipment like gloves and triple layer surgical masks — would be air-lifted by the Health Department if required, officials said.Though the Union Health Ministry has issued a press release that medical supplies stock has been despatched to Regional offices of Health and Family Welfare, the State Health Department is yet to receive any official information on this, they said.

The Hindu, 2nd May 2009