4 swine flu cases in TTBy SEAN DOUGLAS Friday, June 12 2009
HEALTH Minister Jerry Narace said Trinidad and Tobago now has four persons confirmed with swine flu, as the World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday declared it a pandemic.
Two women from Tobago have the virus, in addition to two women in Trinidad already infected.
“There is no cause for panic, but there is cause for serious concern,” Narace told an emergency news conference yesterday at his Park Street, Port-of-Spain office.
He said that as of Thursday, the world has had 27,737 cases of the Influenza A H1N1 infection including 141 deaths, in 74 countries.
Narace said, “In Trinidad and Tobago, the reported cases are now four. The confirmatory tests from the two suspected cases in Tobago came back positive. The patients are isolated and are doing well.” He said the country is well prepared to respond to the H1N1 virus.
He said the responsible conduct of citizens had delayed by seven weeks the entry of the virus to Trinidad and Tobago. Narace added, “I also need to sincerely thank the first two confirmed H1N1 cases who depicted the most responsible behaviour. Both they and their families have enormously helped our containment efforts. They should be commended for their model behaviour as patients.”
He urged citizens to wash hands often with soap and water, to cough or sneeze into their elbow or a tissue rather than their hands, and to avoid infected persons.
“Anyone who develops flu-like symptoms and has travelled or been in contact with a person who has travelled to the affected countries in the past seven days should immediately visit his or her nearest health centre or doctor.”
He said the WHO’s raising of the alert from phase 5 to phase 6 was due to the geographical extent of its spread, not due to any worsening of the severity of the virus itself. Saying his team had met earlier yesterday, Narace said: “All of our public health facilities are on high alert and they have specific protocols in place to respond to this situation.” He said he had got more supplies of Tamiflu to treat the H1N1 virus, plus another 450 kits of personal protective equipment. PAHO has given $400,000 for TT’s H1N1 response, he added.
He said no-one is immune from the virus, which must be taken seriously.
The ministry’s Dr Kumar Sundaraneedi said patients are given protective gear and may then be isolated in wards or tents. Dr Helmer Hilwig said the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, has set up a hyperbaric area to assess all respiratory cases. However, he said not everyone testing positive must be warded, effusing that in the US and Canada 95 to 98 percent of cases are treated at home.
“I was very closely involved in both the positive cases in Trinidad and they have behaved so responsibly. One had home-confinement and one even had room-confinement, because the people understand the seriousness of the case.”
Hilwig said the public needs not know the location of the patients whom he said need only be isolated by one metre, or less if wearing a face-mask. Saying the H1N1 virus dislikes sunlight and wind, he said: “This is not a virus that came from Mars about which we know nothing...We know plenty about this virus, because it is nothing more than an influenza A virus.”
Chief Medical Officer Dr Anton Cumberbatch said other people who had travelled and had symptoms were being tested.
Dr Avery Hinds, the ministry’s epidemiologist, gave the steps for someone feeling ill to get tested for H1N1 at a health centre.
“The symptoms that you are feeling will be matched to your possible exposures. So at present, when we are still only having imported cases of the virus, if you have respiratory symptoms, an important question is whether you have travelled to affected countries...Answering the questions completely and honestly is going to help us to route you through the correct pathway for your situation.”
PAHO’s Dr Carol Boyd-Scobie added that the “phase 6” designation did not mean the virus was becoming more severe just more widespread.
