Punjab Government Notifies Swine Flu Under Epidemic Disease Act

Chandigarh: The Punjab government today notified Swine Flu (H1N1) under the Epidemic Disease Act, a senior Health department official said.

The notification issued by the Health and Family Welfare department said all hospitals (Government as well as private) will have to inform the Department of Health about a case of ILI (Influenza like Illness) having chronic diseases, so that such cases are treated at the earliest and proper guidelines of the Government is followed, the official said.

In order to ensure early reporting from all the doctors, the State of Punjab has notified the disease of H1N1- Swine Flu under Epidemic Disease Act.

All hospitals will have to keep a suspected as well as confirmed case of Swine flu in isolation in order to contain the spread of the disease.

All hospitals will have to inform the Health department in case a suspected or confirmed case of swine flu is reported, Health and Family Welfare department, principal secretary Vini Mahajan said.

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The treatment of swine flu is provided free of cost to all the patients as recommended by the Government. All private and Government hospitals will have to abide to this notification, she said.

Ms Mahajan said the Health and Family Welfare department has constituted a State Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of Dr D Behera, Prof and Head, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, PGIMER, Chandigarh.

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The committee observed that patients of swine flu who were having other chronic diseases had high mortality rate as compared to patients not having chronic diseases.

It was also observed that patients who were treated by private doctors were referred to the higher centres only when they become critical thus increasing the death rate.