Swine flu continues to present a challenge to the health department officials in Rajasthan as the number of people testing positive for H1N1 virus, continue to register in the hospitals across the state.
As the first half of January this year has already seen more than a 1,000 patients and around 50 deaths due to swine flu, the health department is now going to hold an intensive screening drive in the state, starting from Monday. Medical and Health Minister Dr Raghu Sharma has directed the department officials to ensure that the entire medical staff be present on duty during the three-day long drive.
“For effective prevention of swine flu and spread awareness about it among the people, the drive will be held till January 23. During the three-day long intensive drive, focus will be on children under five-years of age and people older than 60 years and pregnant women,” Dr Raghu Sharma said.
“Teams of health workers will look for the person who has signs and symptoms of swine flu including high fever, flu, cough and cold. People in contact with any person found H1N1 positive and their neighbour would be screened and given treatment during the drive. If any child is found positive then screening will also be done in his school as well,” he added.
All the additional directors, Chief Medical & Health Officers and Block CMOs have been instructed to regularly visit their respective areas for cross verification. The minister has instructed to send the information of absent medical personnel to the headquarters and instructed them to take strict action against them according to the rules. Sharma said that keeping in view the seriousness of swine flu in the state, all type of leaves for the doctors and medical staff have been cancelled.
Meanwhile, 60 more people tested positive for H1N1 virus while one patient of swine flu died on Sunday. With the fresh reported cases, total number of people found swine flu positive in the state during the month of January so far has increased to 1,233 and 49 people have died due to swine flu in the first 20 days of this year. As per medical department officials the latest death occurred in Bikaner on Sunday.
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 "Dr Raghu Sharma")
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