India: Efforts on to trace 50 co-passengers

3 Jul 2009

LUDHIANA: With the detection of H1N1 virus in a Ludhiana based family in Amritsar, the health department has swung into action with its integrated surveillance team now sending emails to all the civil surgeons across the state for tracing 50 more passengers, who came in contact with the infected child, to prevent any further spread of the infection.

While giving information, nodal officer of Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme Deepak Bhatia said, “As swine flu spreads through human to human contact, it was mandatory for the health department to check all the people who came in contact with the infected child.”

Bhatia informed that the family belongs to Randhir Singh Nagar in Ludhiana. When 11-year-old Karan Preet Singh’s throat swab test turned positive, the health department acted swiftly and isolated the parents of the child. He said the department was planning to give chemoprophylaxis treatment to the sister of the 11-year-old child. He said as a safety measure, the health department had given chemoprophylaxis treatment to all those who had come in contact with the child.

Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme has sent an email on Friday to all the civil surgeons of the state to trace all 50 co-passengers who had come in contact with the H1N1 positive child.

The nodal officer, while giving information said as the flight had landed in Amritsar and it was a direct flight from Canada to Punjab, so most of the co-passengers were expected to be from the state itself.

On being asked about any co-passengers from the city, he said there was only one from the city, while rests were from Hoshiarpur, Ferozepur, Bathinda and other districts of the state. He said the department was on it toes to trace all the co-passengers and would start giving them chemoprophylaxis treatment.