By IANS,
New Delhi : Nearly 60 hours after Chhattisgarh sent a suspected swine flu patient’s sample for testing, the investigation result is still awaited but the patient has already died in a hospital, authorities said Friday evening.
“We sent the sample to the National Institute of Communicable Disease (now known as National Centre for Disease Control) but the test result is yet to come,” T.K. Agarwal, Chhattisgarh’s deputy director (epidemic) and swine flu nodal officer, told IANS over telephone.
This development has come even after the central health ministry claim that it has prepared 18 high-quality labs to test suspected swine flu patients and test results are being delivered within 24 hours.
Sitaram Verma, 18, had shown common flu like symptoms and died in a hospital in Chhattisgarh Thursday. Verma, who was working in Pune, returned home in Bemetara in Durg district last week after the Maharashtra city came in the grip of the H1N1 virus.
“We are not in a position either to confirm or deny whether it was a case of swine flu death,” Vivek Choudhary, superintendent of the Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Government Medical College and Hospital, had said.
Agarwal too said: “I cannot confirm if it is a swine flu death or not. We are still waiting to hear from the Delhi lab. Thursday, I had tried to know about the status of the sample but the report was yet to come.”
Asked why they did not send the sample to the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) laboratory in West Bengal, the swine flu nodal officer said: “We have got directions from the central health ministry to send samples to Delhi or Pune (National Institute of Virology). We have not received any other direction.”
He added there were no other patients of swine flu in his state so far.