Health Ministry gears up to keep swine flu in check

With swine flu season approaching, the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday decided to strengthen nationwide awareness campaign to tackle the disease apart from directing officials to issue advisories to states and review their strategy at regular intervals.

Union Health Minister JP Nadda who held a high level meeting to review the preparedness for tackling the seasonal influenza issued necessary directions to officials related to procurement of medicines, training, issuing of advisories and guidelines for the state governments.

Senior officials said that this season, the focus of the Ministry will be on Maharashtra and Rajasthan as a large number of deaths and cases related to the disease were reported from these sates last season.

An official said that the Ministry will also issue an advisory within a couple of days to various state governments on preventive measures and other issues related to the disease.