3 human samples from Chandigarh negative

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 22

There is no human outbreak of Avian Influenza in Chandigarh yet with all three samples taken from suspected patients testing negative at the central laboratory in Delhi today.

Anshu Prakash, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health, looking after emergency response, told The Tribune: “The three samples of suspected cases received from Chandigarh yesterday are negative.”

Sources in the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal samples were taken from three suspected cases in Chandigarh — a boatman at Sukhna Lake; a woman who had handled an infected bird and another male adult — all of whom reported upper respiratory tract infections. Sample tests for Avian Influenza (H5N1) strain at the NCDC in Delhi tested negative for the virus.

The ministry today said human health situation in Chandigarh was under control but asked every resident, especially within 3-km radius of the lake, the epicentre of the outbreak, to watch out for high-grade fever; upper and lower respiratory tract infections, including pneumonia.

Health Minister JP Nadda today said the Central team, deputed in Chandigarh on December 18 (as earlier reported in these columns), was assisting local authorities with house-to-house surveillance to detect persons who may have got exposed to the infected birds.

The active health surveillance is happening in the 3-km radius of the lake where droppings, secretions, excretions, etc. from culled birds could have fallen or where people may have come in contact with infected captive ducks, now killed.

Central authorities said lower respiratory tract infection (pneumonia) was a more serious suspected case of Avian Influenza than the upper tract infection.

“Anyone with pneumonia symptoms must report their sickness. People should not go near the infected area and anyone who may have in the recent past handled an infected duck, fed them from close or touched them, should watch out for symptoms of breathing difficulties,” a Health Ministry expert overseeing Chandigarh surveillance operations said. The risk of human transmission of the virus in Chandigarh is low as the movement of the infected birds was restricted to the lake.

“The scale of infection in Chandigarh is not as high as in Kerala and West Bengal. The risk of human outbreak is always higher when the infected birds are in domestic and backyard poultry or duck farms,” an expert said.

The challenge for the health authorities is to be on the watch for pneumonia symptoms among people. Incubation period for avian flu virus is two to four days by when the patient of pneumonia should be put on anti-viral Tamiflu.