The emergency departments in New Zealand hospitals are struggling hard to catch up with the swine flu cases which have become quite dominant. Though the number of swine flu cases is less compared to the previous outbreak, the new admissions in hospitals have reached the highest number last week with 1900 individuals reporting at the hospitals with symptoms similar to the flu.

The emergency department at one hospital says that approximately two out of every three patients who reported had been administered Tamiflu or oseltamivir, its generic alternative. Many city hospitals also complained about almost running out of capacity. The hospital staff too has gone down with most of them getting infected themselves.

Most of the schools in Auckland said that almost everyday one child per class was falling sick.

Unlike last year, patients with flu-like symptoms are reporting at the emergency departments this time. Many patients with flu avoided hospitals the previous year when H1N1 was pandemic.

According to the estimations by Ministry of Health, more than a million ‘kiwis’ have already turned immune to the strain after being exposed to swine flu. This figure includes those who were given the vaccine.

Obese individuals, pregnant women, smokers or those with lung problems could have serious complications.

Other non-influenza virus cases have been reported included those of respiratory syncytial virus and rhinovirus. These are highly contagious and need to be treated in isolation in hospitals.

According to Chris Mansell, a microbiologist at Waikato hospital, the only influenza circulating the nation at present is swine flu. 1in 10 patients with winter illness had influenza and swine flu was the only one detected. Dr Mansell’s laboratory has been reported to work on 80% capacity. Even then, he says that number of reported cases of flu is just a hundredth of the actual number of swine flu cases.

Source:

NZ Herald