By Tauseef-ur-Rahman
The doctor, who works in the anesthesia department of a private health facility, North-West General Hospital and Research Centre Peshawar, was tested positive for the Swine influenza.
“Yes, we have received information from National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad that a doctor of the private hospital has also been infected with the virus,” said NWFP Director General Health Services Dr Fazl Mahmood while talking to The News.
Dr Fazl said he had told his deputy director of public health to send a letter to the private health facility to close the hospital for two or three days. “The hospital administration should fumigate the entire hospital and also dispose off all the stuff that was used for the Afghan woman including bed, and other surgical equipment,” he added.
He said samples of some 12 staff members of the private hospital were sent to NIH among which the institute officials telephonically conveyed that one person had been tested positive for Swine flu virus.
It is pertinent to note that an Afghan woman, Lateefa Bibi, 40, was brought from the western province of Herat, Afghanistan, to the same private hospital with severe chest infection was diagnosed with the fatal virus and expired on November 7.
It was learnt that the woman was kept in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with other patients and the central air-condition system was also switched on. She was shifted to the isolation ward and air-condition system switched off when the public health team warned the hospital management that it could infect other people around.
The DG said the infected doctor should be kept in isolation and he should start taking medicines. However, it was learnt that the doctor left for home as he was reportedly told that as he had no symptoms for the virus, he don’t need to be kept in isolation.
The top health official said that the provincial health department had also planned to screen all the passengers who will come after performing Hajj in Saudi Arabia. When contacted by phone in the night, the chief executive of North-West Hospital, Dr Sardar Alam, said, “I don’t have any information and at the moment I am busy with a patient,” he said and hanged up the phone.
It is also pertinent to note that after the death of the Afghan woman Dr Sardar Alam was contacted and asked why staff of his private hospital was not vaccinated against the Swine flu, he had said that there was no need to provide vaccination to the staff without any symptoms of the disease.
He had said that they had directed all the staff that interacted with the infected woman to check their temperature twice a day and also if they feel any symptoms of flu they should immediately report to the hospital, and added that without any reason they could not give anti-viral medicines as the virus could develop resistance against the medicine.
When another expert was contacted, he said that the first seven days were of incubation period during which the symptoms of the disease were not visible but it can be noticed after this period.