Reports suggest that in past five years, around 87 people died due to swine flu in Jammu Kashmir. 2019 witnessed the highest number of deaths due to this disease.
According to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 27 people died of swine flu in Jammu and Kashmir last year.
The swine flu cases are recorded across Jammu and Kashmir mostly during the winter. In November 2019, following dip in temperature, the hospitals across Jammu and Kashmir especially its tertiary care hospital SKIMS Soura started receiving patients with complaint of flu.
Hospital authorities suggest that around 20 swine flu positive cases were admitted this season although no one died. Compared to the previous years, this season saw dip in the number of H1N1 influenza positive cases, reports said.
Doctors say that people especially those with different ailments should adopt precautionary measures before the onset of winter across the region because H1N1 influenza mostly affects those people who are ill.
Now with the outbreak of Coronavirus in China, Kashmir has not yet seen any case of coronavirus but a spurt in swine flu (H1N1) numbers continues to pose a threat in the region.
The government has said that as many as 21 persons—seven from Jammu and 14 from Kashmir—have arrived in Srinagar and Jammu during the last few days and they have been kept under home isolation.
Tests were conducted on 11 passengers — seven from Jammu and four from Kashmir— and sent to a laboratory in Pune. Of these, seven reports have arrived back and all of them are negative, reports suggest.
But the question remains that is it enough to establish a 33-bedded isolation ward at Government Medical College Jammu for coronavirus cases and 22-bedded such facility at GMC Srinagar, SKIMS Soura and Maternity Hospital Sanatnagar in the Kashmir valley.Are we really prepared for any kind of eventuality? Do we have the quarantine and other allied facilities for testing and treatment of such patients? The government must wake up to this reality and prepare a comprehensive contingency plan to tackle such a situation.
