Re: Another dies of swine flu - total 3
Re: Another dies of swine flu - total 3
Source:
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=105734
Monday, September 14, 2009
Swine Flu
Govt confirms 1 more death
61 new cases in 7 days
Staff Correspondent
The government yesterday confirmed one more swine flu death while 61 new cases were found in last seven days raising the number of patients to 372 in the country.
Mushtuq Husain, chief scientific officer of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), confirmed the death following a routine surveillance report.
The patient was a 24-year-old young lady who was suffering from blood cancer and receiving treatment at the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH).
Her condition deteriorated after getting infected with swine flu and she died Monday last, said Mushtuq Husain.
At a press briefing at IEDCR he also said according to their epidemiological analysis, around 50,000 people in the capital have so far been infected with swine flu.
"But most of them are cured already as they had been suffering from mild illness," he said adding, in almost 98 per cent cases, patients get well without any help of anti-viral drugs.
Only five to ten persons out of 10,000 infected might need anti-viral drugs, he said.
"The trend of swine flu in Dhaka is downward but the number of infected is increasing outside the capital," experts said stressing the need to strengthen awareness campaign across the country.
LACK OF COORDINATION
Lack of coordination among different government bodies in managing, reporting, testing and keeping records of the swine flu cases leads people to a confusing state.
The IEDCR yesterday confirmed that Nasreen Khanam of Gopalganj who died on Wednesday was not a swine flu case.
"After collecting her throat swab and testing it in the laboratory we are now sure that she had seasonal flu," said Mushtuq Husain.
IEDCR confirmed three swine flu deaths till date. But they are yet to confirm the reason behind the death of Sobhan alias Sagor, 20, who died at DMCH on September 4, and Fahima who died in the early hours of Saturday.
When asked if the sample could be collected from Nasreen and tested at the IEDCR even after her death, then why the samples from Sagor and Fahima could not be tested, Dr Mushtuq said they did not get any samples of these patients from the hospitals.
"As we did not get the sample from the hospitals, we could not confirm through laboratory testing whether those patients were swine flu infected," said Dr Mushtuq.
He added, they even didn't know how many patients were receiving treatment in the isolated units of different hospitals and how many of them were getting well.
"As all the hospitals are not sending us reports timely, we don't know the exact figure of the patients undergoing treatments in different city hospitals," he added.
Even it is not clear how the sample of the cancer patient who was not registered with the swine flu unit reached IEDCR and how she continued treatment at another department after being confirmed as having swine flu on last Sunday.
Resident Physician of DMCH Dr Golam Kibria said they had not known anything about her sample testing, as she was not registered with their ward.
He also said soon after Sagor's death they contacted IEDCR but nobody came to collect his sample.
Dr Mahmudur Rahman, director of IEDCR, however said he was not immediately contacted and sample is needed to be collected within an hour of death.
" Moreover testing sample from the dead body is not our priority," he added.
Even though the government has been repeatedly telling of availability of anti- viral drugs and treatment facilities at 95 Urban Primary Health Care Centres, most of them have not received the drugs yet and can provide only symptomatic treatment to the patients, this correspondent found.
IEDCR Senior Scientific Officer Mustaque Hossain told reporters at a press briefing at its office.
