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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

American & European visitors to be screened for swine flu

28 Apr 2009,

NEW DELHI: Alarmed that the deadly swine flu, which has already taken over 100 lives in Mexico, could reach India, the authorities on Monday decided to screen all travellers coming from the US, UK, Canada, Mexico, France and New Zealand, while advising to avoid ``non-essential travel'' to these flu-affected countries.

The scare of a pandemic that could affect millions across the globe, spurred the Indian authorities to put together a containment plan by deploying doctors at nine airports and ports and making it mandatory for all those arriving from the flu-hit countries to undergo checks for fever and throat infection.

Given that these are fairly common symptoms for all kinds of ailments, expect some confusion at the airports, especially in Delhi and Mumbai which get maximum traffic from these countries. At these two airports, a team of 32 doctors is being put in place and the screening process is supposed to kick in from Thursday.

The other airports indentified for mandatory check-ups are Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kochi, Jaipur and Goa. Health ministry officials said that throat swabs would be taken and blood samples collected of travellers who complain of upper respiratory tract diseases and fever. Airport authorities, however, said they are still in the dark and are yet to gear up for these checks.

Health ministry officials said they were also trying to track down all passengers who have come in from Mexico into the country in the past 10 days to check them out for similar influenza symptoms. A request has been made by the health ministry to the immigration department for details of all such passengers, so that doctors can visit their local addresses.

Doctors clarified that there is no risk of the flu from eating pork and pork products, including ham, salami and sausages. Otherwise, it's advised that pork is cooked at temperatures over 70 degrees - a level at which all viruses die.

The new flu does not have any preventive vaccine for humans, although timely medication can cure it. The medicine advised is Tamiflu and Relenza. Fortunately for India, it already has a stockpile of one million doses of Tamiflu. The government is now planning to double its buffer stock by ordering another million doses of the drug. Health secretary Naresh Dayal told TOI, ``These drugs have a shelf live of five years. So we may increase our buffer stock.''

Four labs - National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) in Delhi. National Institute of Virology (Pune), National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (Kolkata) and Regional Medical Research Centre (Dibrugarh) - have been put on high alert to test human samples for H1N1 infection.

Dr V M Katoch, secretary of India's department of health research, said there were no suspected cases of H1N1 infection in India, either in animals or humans. ``However, our main focus now is to combat human importation of the virus into India. Human to human transmission of this new virus, with altered genes, has been confirmed by WHO,'' Dr Katoch said.

The ministry's joint secretary, Vineet Chaudhry, said, ``We already have airport health officers and quarantine facilities. We are just augmenting personnel in heavy traffic airports to scan every passenger. Delhi and Mumbai airports, where the maximum number of international flights touch down, will have majority of the doctors. Delhi will have 32 doctors, most of whom were trained during the SARS and bird flu outbreaks in India, working between eight shifts.''

Chaudhry said the ministry had finished drafting directives to airlines which will inform passengers about the precautionary measures India was taking at airports against swine flu.

Passengers will be given two forms - one will be a voluntary declaration from the passenger on the history of their exposure to animals and symptoms of influenza illness. The second form will be retained by the passenger which will tell them where to contact in case they develop symptoms in the next 10 days.

Two round-the-clock toll free numbers (1075 and 23921401) have also been put in place for the public to report influenza like illnesses.

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