“The case is under investigation. A sample has been sent to a government laboratory for confirmation, and the result is awaited,” Sabarkantha district collector Ratankanvar Gadhavicharan said. The boy tested positive in a test conducted at a private laboratory, but health authorities want to verify and have sent his sample to a government laboratory for confirmation, doctors at the private hospital said. “The patient, who was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday morning, showed signs of severe pneumonia, after which his blood sample was sent for examination to a private laboratory which confirmed that he was infected with HMPV” , said Dr Imtiaz Memon of Baby Care Hospital. .
After he tested positive, district health authorities were informed and sent another sample to a government hospital for cross-checking, he said. The child is on a ventilator in the hospital’s intensive care unit, he added. This comes two days after Gujarat reported its first confirmed case of HMPV infection in a two-month-old infant.
The baby tested positive in a report from a private laboratory on December 26, but the case was reported late to the Health Ministry. Isolation wards have been created in civil hospitals in Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and Rajkot as a precautionary measure after Gujarat recorded its first case of HMPV – a respiratory disease with flu-like symptoms, officials said. To deal with any health emergency, isolation wards of 15 beds each (45 in total) have been created in three major civil hospitals in Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and Rajkot, a health department statement said.
Gujarat Health Minister Rushikesh Patel said the state health and family welfare department was on alert and all arrangements were in place to deal with the situation. All these services are currently vacant as no new suspected cases of HMPV infection have been detected, the statement said. On Monday, the Health Ministry issued a circular asking all public hospitals to take necessary measures to treat HMPV cases.
Additional test kits will be purchased and distributed to these hospitals in the coming days to accelerate the detection of HMPV cases. Minister Patel said on Monday that his department held a meeting on January 4 and asked district public health officials, civil surgeons and directors of sub-district hospitals in the state to pay full attention to the questions related to the virus.
The Union Health Ministry highlighted that HMPV is already in circulation globally, including in India, and cases of respiratory illnesses associated with it have been reported in various countries. Furthermore, based on current data from ICMR and the Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP) network, there has been no unusual increase in cases of influenza-like illness (ILI) or respiratory illnesses. severe acute illness (SARI) in the country, he said. .
