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Pixie
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Posted: August 14 2013 at 8:19pm |
40-year-old man Mumbai's first suspected Gulf virus case Sumitra Deb Roy, TNN | Aug 15, 2013, 01.28 AM IST 0 comments 0 inShare Share More AA READ MORE Kasturba Hospital|National Institute Of Virology|H1N1|Arun Bamne RELATED Mumbai's Kasturba hospital gears up for MERSNational Institute of Virology team finds new, more lethal strain of ...Health minister inaugurates hi-end scanning machine in Kasturba Hospi...Over 3.42 lakh people screened for H1N1Pregnant woman succumbs to H1N1 MUMBAI: In the first suspected case of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in the city, a Vashi resident has been quarantined at Kasturba Hospital in Chinchpokli. The viral respiratory illness, termed deadly because of a 60% mortality rate, is currently wreaking havoc in Gulf countries. The 40-year-old man was admitted to the hospital's ward 30, meant for infectious diseases, on Wednesday afternoon with complaints of fever and a progressing pneumonia (inflammation of lungs). The patient had returned to India on August 12 after spending 35 days in Saudi Arabia. Of the 46 deaths due to MERS-CoV reported globally, a majority were from Saudi Arabia, where the virus had first emerged in 2012. The Vashi resident had contacted a local physician in Navi Mumbai after his fever did not subside for almost a week. In most cases detected globally, MERS-CoV has been found to cause a lung infection. Fever with chills, cough, breathing problems and gastrointestinal ailments were some of the other symptoms. While the Vashi resident had pneumonia in the left lung, he did not show any signs of breathlessness. After the patient tested negative for H1N1, doctors suspected that he had caught the virus during his stay in Saudi Arabia. His samples have been sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune. A civic official said, "The patient has been started on antiviral oseltamivir. He is responding well to medication." The NIV report is expected to arrive by Friday. Executive health officer Dr Arun Bamne said the patient was doing well. "He is not critical and we have kept him in isolation for observation," he added. The patient does not live with his family, another civic official said. The civic body assured that a treatment protocol to deal with such cases has already been put in place. "As of now, there is no clarity on the virus, its spread or treatment options. We only have to treat the patients symptomatically," the official said. Last month, the Union health ministry alerted all states about the virus though there are no immediate plans to up the surveillance. It is estimated that around 600 people come to the city from Saudi Arabia everyday. |
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arirish
Admin Group Joined: June 19 2013 Location: Arkansas Status: Offline Points: 39215 |
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This is a disaster waiting to happen!
Printed from Protocol on Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in place, isolation facility poor Sumitra Deb Roy, TNN | Aug 16, 2013, 04.06 AM IST MUMBAI: The city's first suspected Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus (MERS-Cov) case has highlighted how its sole isolation facility needs some serious beefing up. The 20-bed ward at Kasturba Hospital has just one ventilator, the beds separated by makeshift partitions. Both may prove fatal, especially since patients are isolated for a respiratory viral infection that has potential to spread and kill. The 40-year-old patient from Vashi is currently being treated at the isolation facility while his test reports are awaited from the National Institute of Virology, Pune. Admitted to the hospital with fever and pneumonia, he was suspected to have the infection as he had traveled to Saudi Arabia. Experts are afraid that the isolation facility at Kasturba hospital fails to conform with recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO) or the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). For MERS-CoV, the minimum requirement is that of an airborne infection isolation room. In its absence, the patient is supposed to be kept in a room with its door. But the isolation centre at Kasturba Hospital just has cubicles in a large room with no facilities for filtering the circulating air. Asked about the city's preparedness, BMC's executive health officer Dr Arun Bamne only said that since the patient was a Navi Mumbai resident, they have informed the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation of the case. There are also concerns about the security of healthcare workers, who may have to attend to infected patients. While there are no vaccines available, experts say worldwide N95 masks have worked well to protect the caregivers. So far, only four cases of healthcare workers contracting the infection have been reported, all from Saudi Arabia. "The N95 mask has three layers of protection, which is not very easy for a virus to infiltrate. Smaller viruses may still have some chance of breaching the protection because of their size but the adult ones are less likely to do so," said Dr Om Srivastava, director, department of Infectious Diseases, Jaslok Hospital. He added regular use of hand sanitizers can also keep the virus away. The BMC has already drawn up a treatment protocol prepared by head of medicines of three medical colleges. Head of Sion Hospital's medicine department Dr N D Moulick said since little was known about the virus, the plan is to treat a patient with local antibiotics before administrating antiviral drugs. "The approach would be different if the patient has a travel history to the Middle East," she said adding doctors have to be cautious while treating patients at their clinics. |
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