India's first Swine Flu Death

The flu Pandemic officially named “new H1N1" was first identified in India in April 2009. In simple terms it is called “Swine Flu”. It is a global outbreak of new strain of influenza virus. It covers many areas of India and many people suffered from swine flu. The areas which are mostly affected by swine flu include New Delhi, Pune and Hyderabad. The swine flu showed its virulent effect and a small innocent 14 years old girl died because of swine flu. A Pune girl Rida Shaikh died on Monday August 3, 2009 because of swine flu. She was the first victim who died because of swine flu in India as a result of multiple organ failure. Rida first consulted a local doctor when she reported symptoms of swine flu on July 21, 2009. After two days she recovered and again joined the school on July 23, 2009. But again on July 25, 2009 she felt fever and was admitted to a private hospital – namely Jehangir Hospital - on July 27, 2009. After admitting when her condition worsened she was shifted to the ICU and put on a ventilator. To get clarification about swine flu her sample was sent to National Institute of Virology where it was confirmed that she was suffering from swine flu. After that she was put on Oseltamivir and finally died on Monday August 3, 2009. Her death was the first death in India because of the H1N1 virus.
The upset family of Rida has decided to sue the hospital for negligence. Rida’s father said that if they had sent the samples to NIV at the right time then his daughter would be alive today. I can sympathise with the parents who want to sue the hospital for perceived negligence – but is that the right course to take? In Pune only NIV has the wherewithal to test for swine flu and Kasturba Hosital is the only hospital which has been designated a quarantine center. Mumbai still does not have a testing center for swine flu, with the Haffkine’s Institute now being prepared to do the testing. All swabs have to be sent to NIV from Mumbai, and with Pune reporting so many instances of swine flu, it is going to be a challenge to keep things under control.
The challenge is to get the infrastructure in place, quarantine centers, testing laboratories, information dissemination on symptoms, all doctors should be told to mandatorily have the H1N1 test done in cases where even some of the symptoms are on display. Only with a completely holistic approach will we be in a position to contain the outbreak of a real pandemic. With India’s size and population it is a miracle that we have had just one death (which is one too many) so far. If we compare India with rest of the world, there are more than 160 counties to have been affected with lakhs of cases. Over thousands have been affected and have lost their lives globally. Till date over 40 lakh people have been screened at various entry points in India as claimed by the Health Minister. India must be the first country to have screened so many people in almost 20 odd international airports. Over 45,000 people are screened on a daily basis. The ones who tested positive were isolated and treated. We had almost 558 cases out of which 470 cases have been treated effectively. This virus is treatable and the medicine is available. It is not made available over the counter because of the fear that it would be prescribed indiscriminately. As a result the human body could form a resistance to the drug and with the virus mutating rapidly, we could face greater risk from the virus.
The Health Ministry should come out very quickly with guidelines on treatment, it should set up testing laboratories in all major cities and have designated hospitals as quarantine centers stocked with tamiflu tablets and nurses trained to tackle the influx of patients. The sooner this is done the safer we will be.