Mumbai, Feb 4: Amid 163 suspected Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) cases and five suspected deaths in Maharashtra, the Union Minister of Health J.P. Nadda has asked the Health Urban Development and other departments to work together for monitoring and implementation of a slew of measures to keep the outbreak under control.
Further, he directed the state government to provide free treatment to the patients as per the guidelines issued by the union health ministry. This was informed by the state Public Health Minister Prakash Abitkar here on Tuesday.
Abitkar said that Nadda held a detailed review of the GBS outbreak in the state on Monday and assured the Centre’s assistance. Abitkar said that the suspected GBS patients are treated free in the hospitals run by the Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporations and the treatment is also covered under the state health insurance scheme Mahatma Phule Jan Arogya Yojana.
Abitkar said that the union minister also asked the state government to prepare a Standard Operating Procedure for handling the GBS outbreak. As on Monday, the minister said that The number of suspected GBS patients has increased to 163 with five suspected deaths in Maharashtra as of Monday. Of these 127 diagnosed are confirmed GBS cases.
One suspected new GBS case was reported on Monday and the remaining four cases are from previous days. Of the 163 patients, 32 patients are from Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), 86 are from newly added villages in the PMC area, 18 are from Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, 19 are from Pune rural and eight are from other districts. Out of these patients, 47 have been discharged till now, 47 are in the intensive care unit and 21 are on ventilators.
Of the 163 patients, 24 are from the age group of 0-9 years, 22 from 10-19 years, 35 from 20-29 years, 20 from 30-39 years, 18 from 40-49 years, 25 from 50-59 years, 14 from 60-69 years, 2 from 70-79 years and 3 from 80-89 years. Abitkar said that the Union Minister has also asked the state government to focus on taking adequate measures for water purification, supply of clean and potable water, and providing counselling and physiotherapy to the patients recovered from GBS.
Further, the Union Minister said to take stern action against canteens and eateries for serving adulterated food. The state government has also been asked to increase surveillance on poultry and send samples to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, he added.
The state Public Health Secretary Nipun Vinayak said that so far 67 samples from poultry have already been sent for testing and analysis. Vinayak said that there are adequate beds and ICU beds in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation areas.
He added that the Health Department along with the concerned municipal corporations are carrying out clinical death audits. He clarified that, unlike the coronavirus pandemic, the GBS is not infectious. Abitkar made a fresh appeal to the citizens not to panic but to take due precautions including drinking warm water and eating fresh food.
IANS