By IANS,
Thiruvananthapuram : With the first swine flu death in the state taking place at a private hospital late Tuesday night here, results of 40 more suspected cases are awaited from various parts of the state.
Speaking to IANS, Amar S. Fettle, nodal officer of the newly constituted H1N1 cell, said earlier the test result was available in six hours from Delhi but now with a lot of backlog, the waiting period was more than three days.
“As of today 56 positive cases in Kerala have been confirmed of which all but seven have got over the treatment protocols. We are now awaiting the results of 40 from the three regions of the state that were sent to Delhi. This increase is because more and more people are coming forward to test for swine flu,” said Fettle.
The state health department has classified the state into three regions for tackling swine flu. They include Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode.
“There is absolutely no need for any panic because we have enough supply of medicines and we have opened more new centres at both government and private sector hospitals. The present delay in getting results will soon be overcome as we expect a test centre to be set up at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology here,” he added.
Meanwhile a patient who is undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Angamaly near Kochi of suspected swine flu is reported to be serious, but test results are still awaited.
The state government is doing its best to control the situation. They are running awareness camps across the state especially in schools. But the bad news is that with the harvest festival season of Onam around the corner (first week of next month), the celebrations could well turn out to be lacklustre because of swine flu.