Surveillance and personal hygiene key to ward off swine flu

New Delhi, May 1 (ANI): Doctors representing various professional organisations and systems of medicine on Friday spelt out the preparedness to deal with the outbreak of the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, here.

Dr. K. K. Aggarwal, President of Heart Care Foundation of India (HCFI), Dr. N.K. Yadav, Director of Health Services, Municipal Corporation of Delhi and Dr. J Nagpal, President of Expressions India, narrated the various preventive measures to be followed by the masses as well as the classes.

Heart Care Foundation of India has warned that the key to fighting swine flu was to pay more attention to personal hygiene.

"So far we have heard three kinds of flu - swine flu, bird flu and the human flu. Precautions for swine flu are same as human flu. Whenever we cough, we should cough on our sleeves. This message is very important for the public. We use disposable paper or cough on our sleeves. We do not need the N 95 filter in India for swine flu," said Dr. K K Aggarwal, President of Heart Care Foundation of India.

Medical experts also stressed on the need for medical institutions to focus on infection control in order to prevent spread of swine flu.

Also, lending support to the cause was Bollywood singer Shibani Kashyap who also rendered a song and explained the benefits of singing from health perspective.

The swine flu outbreak has killed as many as 179 people in Mexico and 1 in the US forcing the World Health Organisation (WHO) to concede that a global flu pandemic is imminent.

A 39-year-old woman, who worked as a census worker in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and whose name has not yet been disclosed, could be the first casualty of the deadly swine flu virus.

In fact, the WHO has raised its influenza pandemic alert level to phase five, one step short of a fully blown pandemic. Phase 6 is the highest in the scale and is for a full-scale pandemic.

Reportedly, the swine flu has spread to countries like the US, New Zealand, Israel, Canada and United Kingdom among several other countries. (ANI)