Swine flu update

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Two more persons have been confirmed positive for Influenza A yesterday.

The latest to contract this disease was a 15 year old girl and an 8 year old boy, both from Shaviyani Goidhoo. Health Ministry reports that both of them had contacted two people from the island who were confirmed positive for Influenza A on Monday.

On Monday, a 21 year male and a 17 year old girl, both from Shaviyani Atoll Goidhoo were confirmed positive for H1N1 (Influenza A) and also a 73 year old male from Meemu Atoll Mulaku.

The locally transmitted number of people now stands at 12. That is, 4 cases from Shaviyani Goidhoo, 5 from Raa Inguraidhoo and 3 from Meemu Atoll.

A health team from Shaviyani Atoll Hospital will leave to Goidhoo island as cases more positive Influeza A have been confirmed.

In an effort to garner support to prevent the spread of swine flu, Minister of Health Aminath Jameel made a statement at the People’s Majlis yesterday. She said that the ministry required the support of officials from the government as well as civil society.

Minister Jameel said that when the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the threat of swine flu earlier this year, inter-sectoral planning committee and a ministerial committee as well as a team from the health sector was formed to take measures to protect the country from the disease. This was done in accordance with the pandemic preparedness plan of WHO and that with the guidance and advice of these officials and committees, the ministry had taken a number of steps like surveillance and screening at airports, ports, compiling treatment protocol at national and regional level and also awareness program was initiated.

In the Majlis, she explained that there was lack of volunteers to spread awareness of swine flu by personally meeting people door to door. Health minister said that civil organization’s support in this endeavour was very much the need of the hour. She said work was in progress to write swine flu awareness information in different languages to inform expatriates working in the country.

So far test for swine flu is only conducted in Indhira Gandhi Memorial Hospital and Minister Jameel said that work is under way to initiate testing in the laboratories of Maldives Food and Drug Authority.

With the raising of threat level of swine flu from phase 3 to 4, as temporary measure, visiting permits to IGMH has been temporarily withdrawn; a travel advisory has also been issued for islands where the disease has been confirmed and advice has also been given to not visit hospitals unless absolutely necessary.

She further said surveillance for the disease will go on in ports and airports and in addition to this, health ministry is already gearing itself to screen Hajj pilgrims who will be arriving start arriving by next month.

Speaking about vaccine availability, Minister Jameel said that the government already had adequate Tamiflu, the vaccine for swine flu but added that additional stock will reach Maldives by February or March of next year.

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