India: PMC to Survey H1N1 flu Affected Areas

PUNE: The outreach teams of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will behavior a survey about hundred homes in the area where H1N1 affected students' resides.

Speaking to TOI on Tuesday, R R Pardeshi, acting public medical officer of health (MOH), said, "We will form outreach teams which will conduct a review of housing societies in the locality where the 58 students who were detected with H1N1 stay. Under this survey, about 6,000 people will undergo beginning scrutiny. Those detected with normal influenza will be treated in normal dispensaries, while those leaning towards H1N1 will be admitted to the Naidu hospital. The survey will be started instantaneously and ward officers are already gathering requisite information, before starting the actual survey."

Pardeshi said the PMC was concentrating on areas where the precious 58 students reside. "The school which reported 21 cases of H1N1-affected students is our focus, and we will mostly examine the housing areas where the affected students stay. The PMC is organising a workshop for doctors and multi-purpose workers and also information dissemination centres will be recognized at ward levels. There is no need to panic and H1N1 cases detected in the town are at a mild level," said Pardeshi.

The PMC has appealed that citizens should shun foreign tours as much as possible. They should travel only if it is totally unavoidable. People who have traveled abroad should home quarantine themselves for ten days on their return to India. It is possible that the symptoms may not show up in one day, because the incubation phase of the virus is seven days.

"If people observe any symptoms of the flu, they must instantly contact the Naidu hospital," said additional municipal commissioner M S Devnikar, adding that there was no require to press the panic button and every effort is being made by the PMC to control the situation.

The PMC's Naidu hospital has a 20-bed capacity, which can be augmented to 80 beds, if required. The hospital also has enough supply of tamiflu tablets.

Meanwhile, the PMC has decided to conduct consciousness drives in the city. Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale has already ordered that the municipal administration bring out an awareness campaign through advertisements and hoardings in the city.