Let us vaccinate high-risk swine flu groups, Maharashtra government requests Centre

With Maharashtra and the country as a whole witnessing a huge outbreak of swine flu, the state government has requested the Centre to allow vaccination of high-risk groups, such as people with diabetes and pregnant women. The state health department has also requested the Centre to find out if treatment from alternative methods — Ayurveda and homeopathy — can be used for curing swine flu patients.

"We have proposed this to the Centre... We have requested them to allow us to vaccinate high-risk groups to prevent deaths due to infection. We have requested the expert committee to look into the issue," a senior state health department official told dna.

"We have asked for the national guidelines to be modified to allow vaccination of these groups," the official added.

Presently, vaccines are used only for doctors, technicians, nurses and health workers. He added that a decision in this regard was expected by April.

From January 1, 2014, till Monday, 3,87,108 suspected swine flu patients were examined and, of them, 40,891 were given oseltamivir (tamiflu) tablets. The total number of swine flu patients in Maharashtra stands at 4,147 and the number of deaths is 349. While 40 patients affected by the H1N1 virus were discharged after successful treatment on Monday, 65 new patients were detected.

"However, though a decision on vaccinating people in the middle of an outbreak looks tough, the vaccine can be administered if there is an outbreak in the later part of the year, from September onwards," said the official, noting that the virus reared its head twice a year. He added that swine flu was a droplet infection, which became active in cold spells and had a three year-cycle.

Though Maharashtra had sought 9,000 vials of the vaccine from the Centre, it has been given around 3,000.

"We have a number of inquiries regarding use of Ayurvedic and homeopathic medicines to combat swine flu. However, we cannot administer or advise the use of these medicines without authentic information," the official said, adding that they had asked the expert committee to look into it for incorporation into the guidelines. "For patients, the '-pathy' is not important, getting free from the disease is," he noted.

The state government is planning to bring in an emergency medical services act to integrate the various stakeholders (state health department, medical education department, civic bodies, private sector) in the health sector to counter epidemics and outbreaks. The law will have the health department as an umbrella authority in times of such outbreaks and epidemics and do away with multiple authorities, which affects the response in such emergencies. It has also set up a committee of experts to examine any mutations in the H1N1 (swine flu) virus.

The state had arranged for ventilators in all district hospitals, municipal hospitals, health and medical education department hospitals.

In 2010, swine flu was detected for the first time in Pune.