With the swine flu season approaching, the Union Health Ministry today decided to strengthen the nationwide awareness campaign to tackle the disease apart from directing officials to issue advisories to states and review their strategy at regular intervals.
Union Health Minister J P Nadda who held a high level meeting to review the preparedness for tackling the seasonal influenza issued necessary directions to officials related to procurement of medicines, training, issuing of advisories and guidelines for the state governments.
Senior officials said that this season, the focus of the Ministry will be on Maharashtra and Rajasthan as a large number of deaths and cases related to the disease were reported from these sates last season.
An official said that the Ministry will also issue an advisory within a couple of days to various state governments on preventive measures and other issues related to the disease.
"We are monitoring the situation and adequate steps have been taken. The ministry will further strengthen nationwide awareness campaign on Seasonal Influenza (H1N1).
"We have extended full support to the state governments. I have directed my officers to issue necessary advisories to the state governments at regular intervals and review their strategy and plans," Nadda said after the meeting.
A senior official said that the Centre has also decided to procure around three lakh medicines as part of the preparedness while it already has a stock of around 1.80 lakh medicines.
During the review meeting, senior officials said that sufficient advisories have already been issued to the states and more will be issued if required.
The Ministry has also undertaken adequate steps to
augment capacity of health facilities to manage the cases of Influenza (H1N1) and strengthen the testing facilities.
It has also ensured availability of PPE Kits and N95 Masks for healthcare workers dealing with such cases.
The officials said that there were sufficient tablets of Oseltamivir for early treatment of Influenza (H1N1) cases.
Nadda also directed the central government institutions to earmark sufficient number of beds for H1N1 patients.
"There is sufficient stock of drugs, testing kits and masks. I am personally monitoring the situation closely," the minister said.
The impact of the outbreak of swine flu was largely seen in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.
