Jamnagar City District Saurastra News Samachar

Not a single testing center in Saurashtra-Kutch region yet A 42-Year-OLD resident of Khambhalia in Jamnagar district was shifted to Ahmedabad on Friday after she reported high grade fever.

Doctors at Krishna Hospital in Khambhalia had no other option but to send her to Ahmedabad, as there is not even a single testing center for swine flu in the entire Saurashtra-Kutch region.

The woman had reportedly returned from London.

Though the Central as well as the state Health ministry’s are issuing guidelines on the disease, residents in eight districts of Saurashtra-Kutch, including Rajkot, Jamnagar, Junagadh, Porbandar, Surendranagar, Amreli, Bhavnagar and Kutch, have to wait for at least 42 hours to know whether the H1N1 virus has affected them or not.

The region has several ports, which are destination for ships and crew from across the world, including from countries affected by swine flu. So far, the samples of suspected cases are sent to New Delhi for tests. “We have created a special isolation ward with 10 beds at the Pandit Din Dayal Hospital in Rajkot,” said Rajkot District Collector H S Patel.

He added: “All the guidelines issued by the Union Health Ministry and the WHO have been strictly followed.” G G Hospital(Guru Govind Singh Hospital) in Jamnagar has also made facilities to treat swine flu patients.

Patel, however, admitted that with no testing facility available, there is no option but to send the samples to New Delhi for tests. “We have been sending the samples to New Delhi by air,” said S Santhilnathan, Chief Medical Officer at Kandla Port Trust.

The port had received two suspected cases last week. They were quarantined for three days before laboratory reports confirmed them as negative.