Goa government on decided to remove its Swine flu nodal officer after his comment that the state lacks funds for the project.
"Dr Rajendra Tamba, who headed the Swine flu monitoring programme in the state will now be replaced with another epidemiologist,"State Health Minister Vishwajit Rane told PTI.
Tamba had earned state government's ire after he released a media statement claiming that the Swine flu monitoring programme in the state was facing financial crunch.
"The state government is spending money from Integrated Disease Surveillance Project (IDSP) received from the government of India, which are now exhausted," Tamba had said.
Maintaining that there was no dearth of funds for the programme,Health ministry had observed that such statements by nodal officer can portray state's wrong image across the country.
"It was not right to make such statement. It was against the interest of the state," the minister said.
"Tamba was not coordinating with the directorate of health service and was not even providing the stock of tamiflu tablets required for the programme," he said.
Rane said the state had sanctioned Rs Three lakh for the programme besides funds from Central government.
{{/usCountry}}Rane said the state had sanctioned Rs Three lakh for the programme besides funds from Central government.
{{/usCountry}}Goa has so far recorded six confirmed cases of Swine flu. The state government has set up two facilities to isolate the suspected and confirmed patients.