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Indian Govt. launches hunts for 2,000 passengers from Mexico |
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Indian government has started the process of tracking down 2,000-odd passengers who are known to have arrived from Mexico, the worst-hit country. This is the biggest manhunt ever in Indian history.
Central government health officers will trace these passengers to their local addresses and check thoroughly for symptoms of swine flu infection. This step is a part of a huge exercise to prevent outbreak of the deadly flu within the country.
This group is part of the 50,000 passengers identified as having entered India from flu-affected countries like New Zealand, Mexico, the US, Canada, Spain, France and Britain over the past week.
On Friday, India also started full-fledged screening of all passengers coming into the country from infected countries. A total of 17,949 passengers were screened till Friday evening at the international airports in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Goa, Amritsar, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Trichy and Srinagar.
Around 96 doctors have been deployed to man 32 counters at the 12 international airports with the maximum counters being in Delhi (eight) and the least in Trichy (one).
Air travel has been confirmed to be the single most important factor in the virus`s spread. The outbreak of the H1N1 virus has started in Mexico and has now been confirmed in 11 countries and is being viewed as having the potential to cause a global pandemic.
India has decided to start by tracking down people who were in the North American country in the past week as it originated in Mexico.
Vineet Chawdhry, joint secretary in the Union health ministry, said, "Not only are we tracking down 2,000 passengers who came into India from Mexico, we also now have in place a mechanism to keep track of every passenger who comes into India from infected countries, till he or she leaves India."
According to ICMR director general Dr V M Katoch, reckless usage of Tamiflu would cause resistance among the general population to the only known drug available against H1N1.
Dr Katoch stated, "It`s protection rate is around 99% right now. If people start consuming them and manufacturers make it available over the counter, it would cause mass resistance and the drug would lose its power. It will therefore only be available through the public health systems for free in case of an outbreak and not over the counter."
In the meantime, India`s generic drug companies in a meeting with the department of pharmaceuticals have guaranteed that within 4-6 weeks, they would manufacture any amount of Tamiflu that the government needs. This will be over and above the 10 million doses that India is stockpiling as part of its pandemic preparedness plan.
On Saturday, the Union health ministry will send an entire protocol for diagnosis and treatment of the disease to state governments in case they are faced with a suspected case.
Till now, no swine flu case has been reported in India.
(Posted on : 02/05/2009)
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| Indian Govt. launches hunts for 2,000 passengers from Mexico |
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