A cab driver engaged in ferrying people to and from Hyderabad international airport was diagnosed with H1N1 flu, making it the first such case in Andhra Pradesh in India this summer.
“The patient is in his forties and was brought to our hospital in a serious condition. What aggravated the condition was that he was obese and suffered from diabetes. He is on a ventilator and responding well to treatment,” said Dr K. Subhakar, who is in charge of swine flu cases at Government Chest Hospital in Hyderabad.
“We are not sure how he tight the disease, but possibly he got it through contact with some H1N1-infected passengers,” he said.
In the wake of detection of a new case of the dreaded infection, the state has directed airports in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam to increase screening of passengers. The screening, which was on a war footing, last year, was scaled down with fall in occurrence of Swine flu attacks.
The first case of H1N1 flu in the country was detected in Hyderabad last May 2009. It spread like wildfire for the three following months, killing 53 people and affecting another 786.
Fearing a similar outbreak this summer, the state government is not taking any probability. “We have activated medical teams at airports and installed thermal sensors,” Dr Subhakar said.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment