Why Screening for Swine Flu is not of Use Anymore
Posted on Sep 08, 2009 by Reena Daruwalla | Comments 0
To begin with, screening at airports and other entry points into the country, enabled the authorities to check the entry of the H1N1 Swine flu virus in the country. Now however, this virus is ‘established’ within the country, and there is on real way to containing it, though everyone can do their bit to limit the spread of the virus so that it affects fewer rather than more people.
Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has admitted as much when speaking at the 27th meeting of Health Ministers of World Health Organisation (WHOs) South East-Asia region and the 62nd Regional Committee Session of the WHO South-East Asia Region in Kathmandu. “The key to control its spread is early detection, complete treatment of confirmed cases and communicating with public at large to create awareness,” adding that “The virus is here to stay and will spread despite our best efforts to prevent its spread.”
This is the reason that screening at airports and other entry points is not going to be of much use now, with this virus being here to stay. “It´s very hard to detect the virus and most of the infected persons don´t even show the symptoms. This virus is very fast, very infectious and borders can´t restrict it. It doesn´t need visa,” as Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr Margaret Chan said, also at the meet.
It has been indicated that rather than waste resources in screening or otherwise, it is more important to utilise resources for treating infected patients. It is also not advisable to close borders and stop movement of people, goods and services that can bring economy to a standstill. Because of this some countries have already given up screening.
Since the Swine flu virus is already in India there is really little point in such screening. The health ministry would therefore do well to use its budgetary allocation more wisely in strengthening the public health system and offering the infected better and more efficacious medical aid. Spreading awareness should be another priority for the health authorities.
Developing vaccines is the other area in which the government can utilise its resources. Vaccines as a preventive measure will better be able to limit the spread of the disease, since they will create immunity against the disease within the population, which is currently lacking owing to this being a non – familiar strain of virus. Currently three Indian companies are testing vaccines and the Serum Institute of Pune is showing the most promising results hitherto.
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