Via Thanh Nien Daily: Vietnam H1N1 testing institute stretched thin. Excerpt:
The only facility to test for the influenza A (H1N1) virus in southern VIetnam is overloaded and unable to deal timely with samples that come in from 20 local provinces and cities.
The HCMC Pasteur Institute is receiving between 600-1,000 samples a day, more than double its testing capacity of around 300, said Director General Tran Ngoc Huu at a meeting on Thursday.
The meeting was attended by health ministry officials and health department officials from 20 southern provinces to discuss ways to combat the flu’s spread.
Huu said the overloading caused delays in sending hospitals the test results. It took up to three or four days sometimes, by which time it would be already too late to administer the antiviral drug Tamiflu.
A representative from Binh Duong Province suggested the ministry imports quick test toolkits to deal with the problem.
However, Nguyen Huy Nga, director general of the ministry’s Preventive Health and Environment Department, disagreed with the proposal, saying such toolkits could not give exact results, and had an accuracy rate of just 50 to 60 percent.
Nga said the government does not encourage institutes to conduct tests for the whole community because it’s very costly to do so.
The ministry is also yet to accept home treatment for influenza A (H1N1) virus patients, Nga said in response to HCMC’s proposal aimed at lessening the burden on local hospitals.
Such a move will be made only when demand for treatment exceeds the capacity of hospitals, Nga said.
Dr. Nguyen Thanh Dung of the HCMC Tropical Diseases Hospital said that his hospital was now only admitting patients who are already confirmed to be positive for H1N1.In another report, Thanh Nien Daily says the latest tally is 6,179 cases with 7 deaths.
