Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 20: Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) today alleged that swine flu cases are on the rise in many parts of the country but Kashmir is clueless due to lack of H1N1 testing facilities.
The DAK president, Dr Nisar-ul-Hassan said the patients in hospitals are “dying undiagnosed due to non availability of diagnostic facilities for H1N1 and other influenza viruses”. “Many infectious diseases have similar presentations and influenza testing would solve the diagnostic dilemma for doctors. It is unethical to empirically treat a patient who is hospitalized to receive correct diagnosis based on laboratory confirmation,” he said.
He said the critically ill patients admitted in intensive care units of tertiary care hospitals “die without diagnosis due to lack of influenza testing”. “In a study conducted at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), thirty percent of patients hospitalized for pneumonias had unknown etiology that could have been influenza related in case the tests had been done,” he said.
Dr Hassan said the two hospitals of Government Medical College and SKIMS which have been designated for conducting influenza tests have no visible facilities in place. “The inflenza testing laboratory of GMC at chest disease hospital Dalgate, on which crores have been spent, is not ready yet. The SKIMS virology lab is doing rapid tests instead of recommended real-time PCR assay which gives high false negative results thus leaving critically sick patients without treatment,” he said.
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