I WOULD like to refer to the concerns raised by Margaret Wing of Petaling Jaya in her letter ‘Confusion over H1N1 number’, which appeared in Malay Mail on Sept 7.
We would like to inform that the number of H1N1 cases published or reported to the media by the Health Ministry are the number of laboratory-confirmed cases of H1N1.
It is the same reporting standard as used currently by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other countries worldwide in reporting cases of influenza A (H1N1).
As we are aware, as part of the current mitigation strategy in managing cases in Malaysia, most cases including certain high risk individuals are being treated on an outpatient basis and confirmatory test are not required to be done for them to facilitate initiation of early treatment.
Only those cases which require admission into either private or public hospitals have the confirmatory
test for H1N1 done.
Cases with complications need to be admitted into hospitals and a clinical sample would be taken for a laboratory confirmatory test, but treatment will be started immediately without waiting for the laboratory
test results.
Testing of H1N1 among hospitalised cases is currently part of the clinical management to exclude other possible infections as we are aware that other viral or bacterial infections may also contribute to the complications.
In conclusion, the figures of H1N1 published in the media only refer to the laboratory-confirmed cases of H1N1 and most of these cases are among hospital inpatients.
TAKING PRECAUTIONS: Wearing face masks can check the spread of the H1N1 virus.
No comments:
Post a Comment