Health Ministry alerts State Govts.

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 10. The Union Health Ministry has issued an alert to State Governments and all hospitals and health institutions under its control over the possibility of biological warfare in the wake of the U.S.-led air strikes against Afghanistan.

Listing the possible infectious agents such as anthrax, typhoid and cholera, which could be used by terrorists, a circular issued by the Ministry has asked the hospitals to reserve adequate number of beds and to store sufficient quantities of vaccines, antibiotics and antisera to meet any eventuality. The circular assumes importance in the wake of reports of cases of anthrax in the U.S. One person has already died of the infection in Florida.

There are three ways in which the infection could be contracted - through a cut or abrasion on the skin, or through inhalation or by consuming meat that had been contaminated by the bacteria that causes the disease.

Infection that is contracted through inhalation is considered to be the most lethal with a fatality rate of almost 100 per cent, followed by infection through consumption of contaminated meat, where the fatality rate is estimated at 25 per cent to 60 per cent and that acquired through cuts in skin, where death is rare if the patient gets proper treatment with antibiotics.

In a health update issued here today, Dr. K.K.Agarwal, Executive Vice Chairman of the Heart Care Foundation of India, noted that direct person to person spread of anthrax was extremely unlikely and that vaccines were available to prevent it.

Immunisation consisted of three subcutaneous injections given two weeks apart followed by three additional subcutaneous injections given at six, 12 and 18 months. Annual booster injections of the vaccine are recommended thereafter.

Symptoms of the disease usually occurred within seven days, but varied depending on how the disease was contracted. The initial symptoms in case of infection got through inhalation usually resembles a common cold, which after several days progress to severe breathing problems and then shock.

In the case of infection through consumption of contaminated meat, on the other hand, the initial signs are nausea, loss of appetite, vomitting and fever, which are then followed by abdominal pain, vomitting of blood and severe diarrohea.

In the case of infection through skin, it begins as a raised itchy bump on the skin that resembles an insect bite and within a day or two develops into a vesicle and then a painless ulcer usually one to three centimetres in diameter and with a characteristic black necrotic (dying) area in the centre. Lymph glands in the adjacent area may also swell, the update said.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : National
Previous : TN crop loss Rs. 300 crores: Paneerselvam
Next     : India to campaign for cheap anti-AIDS drugs