Nagpur: More hospitalized due to swine flu than Covid, limited tests done

NAGPUR: Even as the active cases of swine flu have jumped to 67 in the district, health authorities are unable to scale up testing at mass level. The district now has more H1N1 patients admitted in hospitals than Covid-19. As on Tuesday evening, 63 swine flu patients, including five of ventilator, were hospitalized as against 44 of Covid.
In one case, a government lab was unable to process even 14 samples of close contacts of new swine flu patients.
This year’s tally of H1N1 cases has increased to 113 till August 9. The count was only five till June end.
Each RT-PCR kit for H1N1 test cost around Rs1,500. After adding consumables, reagents, plates and manpower, the final cost comes somewhere around Rs2,500 to Rs3,000 in a government set up. The cost is more than double in private labs where more related investigations are recommended. Medical college labs have asked the district collector to procure more samples as cases are spiralling.
Civil surgeon Dr Madhuri Thorat told TOI that they have requested the directorate of health services in Pune to supply swine flu test kits. “District is facing shortage of H1N1 kits. Like RT-PCR kits for Covid testing, we don’t have same level of stock for swine flu. Supply is not as per the demand. We are expecting arrival of fresh stock from Pune this week. Private labs, GMC, IGGMCH and AIIMS-Nagpur have testing kits. Medical colleges are conducting the test only on limited patients,” she said.
Dr Thorat said each lab is taking individual call to test a patient or not. “First a Covid test is done for SARI or pneumonia-like symptom patients. If they test negative and symptoms are classical, then H1N1 is done,” Dr Thorat said.
Many samples are pending in the government labs. “Medical colleges have kept admitted patients on priority for swine flu test,” the civil surgeon said.
Officials from viral research and diagnostic labs (VRDLs) of IGGMCH and GMCH didn’t respond to TOI calls and messages.
With limited kits, AIIMS is not able to offer swine flu tests for close contacts of new patients. “We have written to the district collector to provide kits for these tests. Symptomatic cases and those meeting case definition norms are already getting tested. One kit for 96 samples is costing Rs1.45lakh. Fro m June till date AIIMS, Nagpur has tested 234 influenza samples and out of them 22 were Influenza A H1N1,” said Dr Meena Mishra, professor and head, department of microbiology, AIIMS Nagpur.
A private lab owner said they are charging around Rs5,000 for H1N1 plus some related tests prescribed by the treating doctors. “We may consider some discounts for BPL patients or those referred by the government. The sample flow from hospitals has increased a lot,” the lab director said.