LNJP Hospital says, 'adequate stock' of swine flu medicine, can lend to others too

Amid mounting cases of swine flu in Delhi, the LNJP Hospital Wednesday said, it has "adequate stock" of medicine for the disease, and the facility can "loan" it to other hospitals as well. The Lok Nayak Jayaprakash (LNJP) Hospital is the biggest hospital run under the Delhi government, where five cases of H1N1 infections have been reported, a senior official said.

As many as 74 fresh cases of H1N1 virus were recorded in Delhi on Wednesday, taking the total number of people affected by the disease in the city this year to 1093, according to a report of the city's Directorate General of Health Services. The city had recorded one death from swine flu and 1,019 positive cases of the disease on Tuesday, which included 816 adults and 203 children, the report said.

"We have adequate stock of medicine and H95 masks at our hospital. We get it from a central facility, and other hospitals need to apply there to get medicines. If other city hospitals are in urgent need of it, then LNJP can also loan it to them," the senior official told PTI. Another senior official, said, all precautions have been taken at our hospital and, as per the new guidelines, "isolation is not required" and only a "metre of distance needs to be maintained from the infected person's bed to another bed".

"We had four cases earlier, and today, one more was reported at LNJP Hospital, so, we have a total of five cases," she said, adding, "no swine flu-related death has been recorded at our hospital". Till Monday, Delhi government had not reported any death due to swine flu and only on Tuesday a death was recorded.

However, two Centre-run hospitals here have reported 13 deaths due to swine flu this year. According to senior officials at Safdarjung Hospital, three deaths due to swine flu have been recorded this season, while RML Hospital has reported 10 fatalities. Nine of the 10 people who died at RML Hospital were from Delhi, and the other one was from outside the city, officials said.

After holding a state-level review meeting on H1N1, the Delhi government recently had said that all government hospitals in the city are equipped with necessary logistics required for the management of the disease and drug Oseltamivir along with personal protective equipment (PPE kits) and N95 masks are also available.

(With inputs from agencies.)