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Maha health dept ramps up med infra after pneumonia outbreak in China
PMC health department on Friday issued a letter to hospital superintendents, zonal medical officers and ward medical officers directing them to ensure medical infrastructure and systems are fully functional
Following reports of mysterious pneumonia outbreak in China, the civic health department in Pune is overhauling its medical infrastructure after the state health department released advisory on Wednesday to local bodies to monitor influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) and reviewing preparedness to tackle such illnesses.
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) health department on Thursday issued a letter to hospital superintendents, zonal medical officers (ZMO) and ward medical officers (WMO) directing them to ensure Covid-19 infrastructure and systems are fully functional.
They have been further asked to start surveillance and monitor SARI and ILI cases reported in the city, said the official. As per the advisory, all districts have been asked to conduct a thorough examination of Covid infrastructure, including beds, oxygen plant cylinders, ventilators, and other critical systems that are fully functional.
Hospitals are instructed to send samples of ILI/SARI patients to RT-PCR labs for testing and some samples for genomic sequencing at the National Institute of Virology, Pune.
Dr Suryakant Devkar, assistant health officer of PMC, said, “We have issued a letter to all ward offices and hospitals to start monitoring all influenza cases. These cases will be tested for influenza viruses like H3N2, H1N1 and Covid-19. The samples of pneumonia patients will be sent for testing and samples of severe patients will be sent to NIV for genomic sequencing. Currently, the influenza situation in the city is under control.”
Dr Devkar said that information, education and communication (IEC) activities for influenza illness and Covid-19 have been started in the city.
“The health staff working in municipal hospitals have been asked to follow hygiene and start using a face mask, PPE kits and sanitisers as per the requirement,” he said.
District civic surgeon Dr Nagnath Yempalay said around 100 beds have been made ready at the Aundh District Hospital to handle any untoward spike in cases.
“The entire setup is ready with trained staff, oxygen plant and medicines. We have an adequate stock of medicines which will last for the next six months. We can increase the bed capacity to 300 beds if required. We are closely monitoring pneumonia and flu cases,” he said.
Dr Pratapsinh Sarnikar, joint director of health services, said there is no need to panic as currently there is no danger of the new mysterious pneumonia to Maharashtra.
The department has been cautious following the Covid pandemic.
“The public health department and private doctors should be cautious and prevent any unlikely outbreak of influenza cases,” he said.
