An eight year old boy infected by Influenza A(H1N1) has come to Sri Lanka from Australia via Singapore. According to the Director of IDH hospital Dr Anura Senanayake, he was found from Wattala and was taken in to hospital in the morning, along with his father.
He’s now been admitted and treated in a separated room. An ambulance had been sent to bring the boy’s sister too to the hospital. Passengers seated near were also asked to get checkups. The medicine to cure the virus is now available in Sri Lanka.
Updated [Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 5:59 PM]
According to Epidemiological Department sources, there is no need to panic over the situation of swine flu, as all precautions have been taken by the Ministry to prevent such kind of influenza spreading in the country. The victims were taken to the Infectious Diseases Hospital at Mulleriyawa. The people should not unnecessarily be afraid of this situation as drugs are available to combat this disease.
“Swine flu PCR” and “Influensa A” are the two tests that’s been done so far to check on swine flu. Tamiflu is a tablet given as the medication to be taken one each two times a day for five consecutive days. Tablets cause 400/-Rs each in the pharmacies. State Hospitals have drugs to treat 36,000 Swine Flu patients at the moment. The special health unit set up at the Colombo International Airport has a doctor and more than 10 PHIs at a time and a new team takes over the shift every six hours from the Negombo hospital.
The Ministry installed two thermal scanners when the Swine Flu outbreak was reported from Mexico. Both scanners function properly. A special engineer monitor the thermal scanners and to carry out maintenance and repairs in Colombo International Airport. It has been made compulsory for all passengers and crews to go through the scanners.
The first child developed symptoms came to Sri Lanka through thermal scanners installed in Singapore and Sri Lanka, but it did not detect because he did not have fever at that time. Scanners detect only persons with high body temperature and not persons infected with Swine Flu. Some persons can be infected without fever and such persons cannot be detected by the thermal scanners.
The Ministry requests the public not to be panicked by inaccurate 'news'.
More related information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H1N1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AntigenicShift_HiRes.png
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html
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