{"id":8559,"date":"2017-01-11T10:12:08","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T04:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kashmir.today\/?p=8559"},"modified":"2017-01-11T10:12:08","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T04:42:08","slug":"65-yr-old-man-dies-swine-flu-kashmir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=8559","title":{"rendered":"65-yr old man dies of Swine Flu in Kashmir"},"content":{"rendered":"

Srinagar:<\/strong> A 65-year old man died of H1N1 influenza (Swine Flu) at SK Institute of Medical Sciences Soura last week, second such death in Kashmir in the past 20 days, making this the highest toll of this season in any state.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sources revealed that the man from Srinagar breathed his last at SKIMS on January 6, three days after he was admitted to the hospital. The man, while being treated at the hospital, had tested positive for H1N1 influenza. He reportedly had severe respiratory distress and was brought to hospital in a “very sick condition.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Medical Superintendent SKIMS, Dr Syed Amin Tabish, said the patient was \u201ccritical when brought to hospital\u201d.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe had multiple problems plus sepsis and went into a shock,\u201d he said. \u201cThe patient died in our Medicine ward.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The hospital officials said that this was the first Swine Flu death in the hospital this season.<\/em><\/p>\n

There has been no public awareness or advisory from health authorities till now, even as Kashmir is bracing with a cold season \u2018viable for flu viruses\u2019 as per experts. Doctors are reporting complacency among masses, even high risk populations, and are concerned that the importance of exercising precautions and vaccination was not well communicated.<\/em><\/div>\n

At SKIMS, authorities argued that advisory was not being issued to avoid \u201cpanic\u201d among public.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cCreating unnecessary panic is against medical ethics,\u201d MS SKIMS said. He added that there was \u201cnothing\u201d right now that demanded an advisory. \u201cI would come out in media if there is a need, if the situation demands,\u201d he said.<\/em><\/p>\n

Government Medical College Srinagar had issued an advisory following death of a 43 year old man on December 21. However, the advisory was not made public and was \u201cinternally circulated\u201d. \u201cInstitutional advisory has been circulated,\u201d Dr Saleem Khan, Head Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, said. He added that the department was keeping a vigil on the situation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dr Saleem ur Rehman, Director Health Services Kashmir, said the directorate had \u201ccommunicated to all the epidemiological units across Kashmir about notifying any such case\u201d. \u201cSo far, we have not seen any such activity and if there is, we will act accordingly,\u201d he said.<\/em><\/p>\n

Medicos urged that people be made aware of precautions that need to be exercised for all kinds of flu and also the importance and benefits of vaccination.<\/em><\/p>\n

A senior Pulmonologist at a city hospital said that the high risk patients, those with cardiac and respiratory ailments were advised to go for vaccination \u201cright from September\u201d but given the lack of information about the circulating viruses and myths and misconceptions about vaccination, it was ignored.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dr Parvaiz A Kaul, influenza expert and HoD Internal Medicine SKIMS, said, \u201cA spike in cases was expected as Kashmir was seen to have similar pattern as Delhi.\u201d He reiterated, \u201cConsidering the past behaviour of the virus, it was advisable to go for influenza vaccination, especially for children, pregnant women, elderly, diabetics and patients with kidney and lung diseases, asthmatics, and health care workers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Srinagar: A 65-year old man died of H1N1 influenza (Swine Flu) at SK Institute of Medical Sciences Soura last week, second such death in Kashmir in the past 20 days, making this the highest toll of this season in any state. Sources revealed that the man from Srinagar breathed his last at SKIMS on January […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}