Ronan Kelly
Retired 2020
Flu a taboo in rural areas?
20 November 2009, 01:00am IST
JAIPUR: While there is panic all over the state and people with slightest symptom of flu are rushing to get them tested in urban areas, people in the rural areas are abstaining from reporting the findings.
According to reports, two girls of a family, aged 16 and 19, in Nimobohera of Rajsamand district showed flu symptoms and were brought to a private laboratory for testing in Udaipur. They tested positive but when the lab officials contacted their family on Wednesday, no one turned up to collect the test reports.
"We also approached the local administration but neither they came to collect the reports nor there is any indication that they have reached out to the family of the patients," said a lab official. The incident reflects how the virus has become a taboo in the rural areas and how people are not reporting the incidents.
On their part, the state officials claim that they are intensifying efforts to spread awareness and reach out to a larger audience. "Our screening teams not only screen the patients but also double up as messengers and clear myths about the pandemic," says a health official.
In their bid to reach the far-flung areas in the Jodhpur division, the teams started organising workshops in rural areas of Jaisalmer. "We will be attending the villages doing people-to-people contact and even educate the small hotel owners in the area who don't have much knowledge about H1N1," says a health official in the Jodhpur division.
Meanwhile, the testing facility set up at DMRC in Jodhpur started giving results. On Thursday, it gave out reports of 47 samples collected since November 15 and 21 of them tested positive.
Sources said that the district health authorities, who had asked for ventilators from the state authorities, managed to arrange 11 on their own and, after a delay of over a week, have got a 12-bed isolation ward operational at the MDM Hospital. "Owing to sudden rise in numbers flu cases, the hospital plans to add another isolation ward of 12 beds," say sources.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Flu-a-taboo-in-rural-areas/articleshow/5248916.cms
20 November 2009, 01:00am IST
JAIPUR: While there is panic all over the state and people with slightest symptom of flu are rushing to get them tested in urban areas, people in the rural areas are abstaining from reporting the findings.
According to reports, two girls of a family, aged 16 and 19, in Nimobohera of Rajsamand district showed flu symptoms and were brought to a private laboratory for testing in Udaipur. They tested positive but when the lab officials contacted their family on Wednesday, no one turned up to collect the test reports.
"We also approached the local administration but neither they came to collect the reports nor there is any indication that they have reached out to the family of the patients," said a lab official. The incident reflects how the virus has become a taboo in the rural areas and how people are not reporting the incidents.
On their part, the state officials claim that they are intensifying efforts to spread awareness and reach out to a larger audience. "Our screening teams not only screen the patients but also double up as messengers and clear myths about the pandemic," says a health official.
In their bid to reach the far-flung areas in the Jodhpur division, the teams started organising workshops in rural areas of Jaisalmer. "We will be attending the villages doing people-to-people contact and even educate the small hotel owners in the area who don't have much knowledge about H1N1," says a health official in the Jodhpur division.
Meanwhile, the testing facility set up at DMRC in Jodhpur started giving results. On Thursday, it gave out reports of 47 samples collected since November 15 and 21 of them tested positive.
Sources said that the district health authorities, who had asked for ventilators from the state authorities, managed to arrange 11 on their own and, after a delay of over a week, have got a 12-bed isolation ward operational at the MDM Hospital. "Owing to sudden rise in numbers flu cases, the hospital plans to add another isolation ward of 12 beds," say sources.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Flu-a-taboo-in-rural-areas/articleshow/5248916.cms