Srinagar, Apr 3: After a year’s wait, Jammu and Kashmir has got the vaccine against deadly H1N1 influenza or swine flu and up to 50 per cent of the high-risk healthcare workers have been immunized so far.
 The state, in the first phase, has got 15300 vaccines from the central health ministry and they have been equally distributed between Jammu and Kashmir divisions. Besides, the Kashmir division has been granted additional 1500 vaccines for SK Institute of Medical Sciences on demand.
 The state nodal officer for swine flu, Dr Shafaqat Khan, told Greater Kashmir that they have started immunization of doctors, paramedics and rapid response teams which have been dealing with the swine flu cases. He said around 50 per cent of the vaccines have been used so far and rest of the quota would be used in four or five days.
 “We have received instructions that the vaccines shall be spent within a week so we have already begun the process of immunization,” he said.
 In the second phase of immunization, the health department would approach the education department for total number of students and teachers in the private and government educational institutions. It is being done to get an estimate of how many vaccines would be required for immunization of children.
 “In the second phase our target group is children so we want to get an estimate of their number. Once that is done we will sent the request to health ministry for more vaccines,” Dr Shafaqat said.
 He said third phase of immunization would target the general public. “We will go for vaccination of the people who turn up voluntarily.”
 Since early last year, the state has so far seen 115 cases of swine flu which included 50 cases from Kashmir and rest from Jammu. There have been four deaths reported from the state.
 Though swine flu testing centre at Sanatnagar here still receives suspected cases, the occurrence of the disease has died down. Admitting the dip in swine flu occurrences, Dr Shafaqat attributed it to the overall control on the disease and the developing immunity among the populace.
 “The disease has been controlled globally and people have also developed immunization against it. The result is lesser number of cases,” he said.

2 LABS TO BE UPGRADED:
 Meanwhile, Health Minister Sham Lal Sharma today informed the Legislative Council that drug testing lab at SKIMS and Government Medical College, Jammu, were being updated at a cost of Rs 2 crores for fully equipping these for Swine Flu testing. He said after upgradation of these labs, there shall be no need to send blood samples outside the state for HINI tests.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 3 Apr 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 3 Apr 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 4 Apr 2010 00:00:00 IST