AKUH confirms 12 more swine flu cases

With the confirmation of 12 new cases of the H1N1 influenza, or swine flu, by the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), the total number of confirmed cases of the contagious airborne at the private hospital has risen to 53, the provincial health department announced on Tuesday.

The H1N1 strain of the infectious airborne influenza virus has so far killed 20 people in Multan and other parts of southern Punjab, but authorities in Sindh have yet to confirm any fatalities owing to a lack of facilities to confirm swine flu cases.

Dr Zafar Mehdi, the Sindh Health Department’s focal person for H1N1 influenza cases, said the AKUH had confirmed 53 swine flu cases from December 25, 2017 till January 15, 2018. On the other hand, despite receiving dozens of patients suspected to carriers of the H1N1 influenza virus, the provincial health department has not any samples to the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, for confirmation.

Officials at various tertiary care hospitals claim that three to four people were dying every day in the province of pneumonia and related ailments, which was a secondary complication of swine flu. However, they lamented that they could not attribute these deaths to swine flu as no public hospital in the province has the Reverse Transcription–Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) facility needed to diagnose the H1N1 influenza.