Mumbai, August 11: Even as two critical patients battling H1N1 infection at Hiranandani Hospital, Powai, showed marginal improvement, 33 more tested positive in Mumbai on Monday, taking the count of confirmed cases in the city to 95. Among the latest cases is that of a doctor, who was part of the team treating H1N1 patients at Hiranandani. BMC officials said a third patient at a private hospital is in a critical condition. They did not give the details.
The swine flu pandemicThe civic body has decided to start six more screening centres from Tuesday — three each in the eastern and western suburbs.
A 24X7 helpline (108) will start functioning from Tuesday morning, answering queries from anxious citizens. A separate state helpline (22026579) was started on Monday.
More than 1,300 people rushed to various centres on Monday; 286 throat swabs were collected for testing.
Nineteen private hospitals have come forward to treat swine flu patients. A decision on the final list will be taken on Tuesday, said BMC’s executive health officer Jayaraj Thanekar.
Additional municipal commissioner Manisha Patankar-Mhaiskar said 23 more people were quarantined at various isolation centres on Monday.
So far, the city has beds to quarantine 140 H1N1 patients. “The capacity at Kasturba is 100 beds, and it can be increased by another 100, if required,” she said.
Both Siddharth Hospital at Goregaon and MT Agarwal at Mulund have the capacity to isolate 20 patients each.
“Of the 12 additional centres (announced on Sunday and Monday), three have indoor facilities to isolate patients,” said Mhaiskar.
A Powai resident, who tested positive for H1N1 flu on Monday, is still on ventilator in a critical condition at Hiranandani along with a 28-year-old from Chandivli. Both of them had developed acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). “They have shown marginal improvement but continue to be on life-support,” said Dr Sujit Chatterji, the CEO of Hiranandani hospital.
An intensivist at the hospital, who was involved in the treatment of swine flu patients, has also tested positive for H1N1 virus. “We have quarantined and put him on Tamiflu,” said Chatterji.
He said that the hospital has vacated its ICU to create a quarantine unit. The BMC, meanwhile, claimed that it had enough stock of Tamiflu capsules. “We are getting one lakh tablets by Tuesday morning from the central government,” said Thanekar.
About the delay in test reports of suspected cases, he said it was taking 24-36 hours for the results to come out because of the high number of samples. “However, for the critical patients, we are trying to get the test reports within eight hours,” he said.
–Agencies