Swine flu in Manipur: Who is responsible?

The story of swine flu reaching the state of Manipur is only a week old. But already two has been dead and another two more waiting to die at hospitals putting many more lives at risk. According to doctors at Shija Hospital and Research Institute both the victims of the disease had never gone outside the state before they contracted the disease. This means that the H1N1 virus has already been here in the state and there is possibility that some patient might have already died of the disease. Last month people of the state show many advertisements regarding swine flu in newspaper and local cable TV. The advertisements to create awareness about swine flu among the people of the state comes only after the dead toll cause by the disease had reached close to 500 and infected more than 10 times that number across the country. This means that authorities in the state health directorate were not serious about its duty towards the people of the state. An alarm was created among the authority only after a patient was tested positive for the swine flu last week, and that too in a private run hospital. The more surprising thing is that the state health department authority was not even ready to provide space for those contracted with the disease.
And the unfortunate part is – the central government has no policy template to fall back on and is unable to formulate a coherent response to fight the spread of the epidemic as the Draft National Health Policy (and the Twelfth Plan document of the UPA) has virtually nothing to say about tackling avian flu and swine flu. For a state like Manipur whose everything is dependent to the fund and the policy programme of the central government, it is likely that the people of the state will now be in a catastrophe with no way to fight the disease. This has been clearly shown from the statement of Shija Hospital and Research Institute posted at social networking site Facebook. The post said the treatments provided to both the victims were not effective. This shows that the state health department had not taken up anything to counter the swine flu which has already panic almost all the people of the country some three to four months backs. Shouldn’t the health directorate be blamed for what we are facing now?