'H1N1 vaccine by March'

Wed, Nov 4 05:41 AM

Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Tuesday said a vaccine for Influenza-A H1N1 or swine flu would be available by March next year.

He said private pharmaceutical companies were at an advanced stage of developing the vaccine. Azad was addressing the gathering at the 30th convocation of PGI here. He added that the Department of health research had been asked to develop low-cost testing kits for the H1N1 virus and diabetes.

Elaborating on the steps being taken to reform the medical education system in the country, Azad said, "The availability of seats in various postgraduate courses has been increased. There will be an increase of nearly 4,000 seats in the current academic year and about 7,000 seats in the subsequent two years."

"It has often been observed that institutes do not maintain adequate standards once they achieve recognition. To check this, the concept of periodic inspection for postgraduate courses has also been introduced," he added.

PGI doc tests positive for swine fluAnother doctor of PGI tested positive for swine flu on Tuesday, taking the total number of doctors affected in the city to 15. In all, 61 people have tested positive for H1N1 in the city. The 28-year-old ailing doctor is a senior resident at the Department of Endocrinology at PGI. Two fresh samples of senior doctors, from the endocrinology and neurosurgery department were also collected, apart from four other samples. Also, after a Class VIII student of the DAV Public School in Sector 8 tested positive, health officials held a meeting with the school management and stressed on the need to maintain hygiene and identify suspected cases.

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