India cautious over swine flu

The Government on Monday issued a travel advisory for those travelling to countries affected by swine flu.

The Government on Monday issued a travel advisory for those travelling to countries affected by swine flu and put in place a screening system for passengers coming from these nations.

All passengers coming from the affected countries — Mexico,United States,United Kingdom,France,Canada and New Zealand — would be screened and those who have reached here till 10 days back would be tracked down and asked to report to the nearest medical centre,Director General Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) Dr V N Katoch said at a press conference here.

The Government is also instituting surveillance of

ports and international airports along with monitoring through Integrated Disease Surveillance units in the states,he said.

The country already has a stockpile of the effective

drug Tamiflu which was used during the bird flu epidemic. “We have also asked for an additional one million Tamiflu to be procured,” he said.

“As of now we are concentrating on prevention of the

infection spreading from person to person as in India there is no scenario of the diseases spreading from animals till now,” Director of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) Shivlal said.

The states have also been advised to review their

preparedness to investigate and contain any suspected cluster of influenza like illness. Guidelines to this effect have been sent to all the state surveillance officers.

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