Amid mounting cases of swine flu in Delhi, the LNJP Hospital on Februrary 6 said it has "adequate stock" of medicines for the disease, and the facility can "loan" it to other hospitals as well.

The Lok Nayak Jayaprakash (LNJP) Hospital is the biggest hospital run under the Delhi government, where five cases of H1N1 infections have been reported, a senior official said. The death toll due to swine flu in Delhi has risen to six, even as 74 fresh cases of the HINI virus were recorded on February 6, according to a report of the Directorate General of Health Services.

The total number of people affected by the disease in the city this year stands at 1,093, the report stated. Of the six people who have died of swine flu this year, one belonged to Delhi, while the rest five were residents of other cities, it said.

It also mentioned deaths of five more people from co-morbidity, who had H1N1 infection. "We have adequate stock of medicine and H95 masks at our hospital. We get it from a central facility, and other hospitals need to apply there to get medicines. If other city hospitals are in urgent need of it, then LNJP can also loan it to them," the official told PTI.

After holding a state-level review meeting on H1N1, the Delhi government recently had said all government hospitals in the city were equipped with necessary logistics required for the management of the disease and drug Oseltamivir along with personal protective equipment (PPE kits) and N95 masks are also available.

Family members of some of the patients, however, said, Oseltamivir was not readily available at their local pharmacies. One of the parents from Okhla in south Delhi, said, his five-year-old daughter had recently contracted swine flu, "but getting medicine from chemist shops was difficult".

"My wife had to run to several pharmacies in south Delhi, and only one had the Oseltamivir drug. And, she had shown the prescription as well. My cousins were coming from Lucknow, so we got some medicines from there too," he said. Meanwhile, amid the mounting cases of the H1N1 infections in the city, the Delhi government on February 6 issued a health advisory, prescribing the do's and don'ts.

Seasonal Influenza (H1N1) is a self-limiting viral, air-borne disease spread from person-to-person, through large droplets generated through coughing and sneezing, indirect contact by touching a contaminated object or surface (fomite transmission from telephone, cell phones, computers, door handles, door bells, pens, toys etc) and close contact (including hand shaking, hugging, kissing), the advisory said.

Another senior official said all precautions have been taken at the hospital and, as per the new guidelines, "isolation is not required" and only a "metre of distance needs to be maintained from the infected person's bed to another bed". "We had four cases earlier, and today, one more was reported at LNJP Hospital,. so, we have a total of five cases," she said, adding, "no swine flu-related death has been recorded at our hospital".

Till February 4, the Delhi government had not reported any death due to the flu, but it recorded one death of a Delhi resident on February 5. However, two Centre-run hospitals here have reported 13 deaths due to swine flu this year. According to senior officials at the Safdarjung Hospital, three deaths due to swine flu have been recorded this season, while the RML Hospital has reported 10 fatalities. Nine of the 10 people who died at RML Hospital were from Delhi, and the other one was from outside the city, officials said.