Take swine flu seriously, urges Lok Satta

The State Government has not woken up to the threat of swine flu sweeping Andhra Pradesh as a pandemic, the Lok Satta Party charged today.

Talking to the media, party spokesmen Katari Srinivasa Rao and V. Laxman Balaji referred to the warning from the Union Health Minister that one-third of India’s people were likely to be affected by the virus, and from the World Health Organization that lakhs of people were likely to die and said our efforts at meeting the threat were highly inadequate, to say the least. An increase of a mere 10 beds in intensive care units of Government hospitals in districts was hardly sufficient.

The spokesmen underlined the need for massive procurement of drugs which are indigenously produced and import of anti swine flu vaccines from abroad to take the threat head on. The Government should prioritize the distribution of drugs so that the most vulnerable were attended to first.

The Lok Satta leaders said that the flu had resulted in more than 2800 deaths world wide and 100 in India. WHO in its recent statement warned that there had been a steep hike in the number of swine flu deaths. Health experts held out the possibility of the virus mutating and swine flu breaking out in a more virulent form.