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There is no swine flu death: Azad

NEW DELHI: Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Friday there was no death due to A (H1N1) influenza in the country.

Intervening in the Lok Sabha during a discussion under Rule 193, on the situation arising out of the rapid spread of swine flu in the country, Mr. Azad said the throat and nasal swab of the 51-year-old man who was reported to have died of suspected swine flu in Kollam in Kerala on Wednesday had tested negative for the influenza.

The swab samples had been sent by the Kerala government to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases at Delhi where they tested negative, the Minister said.

A 51-year-old male, a diabetic for 30 years, with hypertension, coronary artery disease and dyslipedemia, had travelled from U.K. on March 14, transiting Dubai and Mumbai and reached Thiruvananthapuram on June 12.

As per the database of the Airport Health Organization (specifically maintained for Influenza A (H1N1)) when he reached Mumbai on June 12 from Dubai, he did not have any symptoms, an official spokesperson said.

He developed fever and cough on June 23, and took medication for viral fever at his native place.

His condition deteriorated and he reported to a private hospital at Kottayam in Kollam district where his condition further deteriorated and he expired within two hours of reaching the hospital on July 1.

Earlier initiating the discussion, Sandeep Dikshit of the Congress, asked the government not to lower its guard in preventing the disease from spreading, particularly through those travelling into India from the affected countries, but at the same time warned against the possibility of the multinational pharmaceutical companies “using or misusing” the outbreak to create panic among the people to promote their products.

“Sometimes pharma companies use such sensitive situations for corporate interests which is not always in public interest,” he said.

Mr. Dikshit suggested that health care should be nationalised as had been done in some Western countries.

Accusing the multinational pharmaceutical companies of making a “killing” from such a situation by supplying drugs worth millions of rupees, Maneka Gandhi of the Bharatiya Janata Party said swine flu was a normal influenza for which anti-viral drugs were effective.

“There is no need to spend public money in buying expensive medicines and manufacturing a vaccine because by the time the vaccine is ready, the virus would have mutated into a different strain,” she said.

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