Swine Flu: T-Congress Demands Health Emergency

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Vice-President Mohammed Ali Shabbir demanded that the Telangana government declare a Health Emergency to effectively tackle the outbreak of swine flu in the state.

Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan on Wednesday, Shabbir Ali blamed Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao for the swine flu deaths in the state. He reminded that he had held a presser on January 6 appealing to the Chief Minister to conduct a review meeting with health officials to control the spread of the disease. The media too had reported the cases on a daily basis. However, the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues remained in denial mode and made light of the situation.

"The Chief Minister woke up only after swine flu claimed 12 lives in last 20 days," he alleged, and held KCR directly responsible for the deaths.

With 12 deaths and 221 swine flu cases in the month of January itself, on an average 10 swine flu cases were being reported in the city each day, and one person was succumbing to the dreaded disease every alternate day, he lamented.

Shabbir Ali said that while KCR routinely built castles in the air by promising to make everything "world class", now Telangana had a "world class" impact of swine flu with the maximum number of deaths in the country. Referring to the Chief Minister's reported interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Health Minister J P Nadda and Chief Secretary Dr Rajiv Sharma on Wednesday, he said that this panicky reaction itself was a confession that KCR had failed to take effective measures to prevent spread of the disease.

"Whom will you punish now for the negligence? Will be it Deputy CM Rajaiah or the health officials?" he asked, adding that accountability should be fixed for the loss of lives due to swine flu.

The Congress leader alleged that KCR and his cabinet colleagues denied occurrences of swine flu fearing a political backlash. Advising them to keep politics aside at least for some time, he said that with Telangana being the worst affected state in the country, people were now afraid of coming to Hyderabad due to the disease.

The TPCC Vice-President said that the vaccines and medicines now being supplied were from the old stock supplied by the Centre in 2009-2010 when there was a spurt in swine flu cases. He said that the state government did not even seek a fresh stock of vaccines from the Centre. Instead, the TRS government went on denying the spread of swine flu.

Demanding that the state government immediately declare a Health Emergency, Shabbir Ali advised KCR to conduct a review meeting at Gandhi Hospital, supply vaccines and medicines at free of cost, launch a massive awareness campaign, and ensure availability of doctors and nursing staff to properly attend to patients affected by swine flu.

He also urged the TPCC's Doctors Cell and other Congress workers to help the swine flu patients in their areas.

Shabbir Ali also wished speedy recovery for KCR's wife Shobha who has been admitted to a private hospital for fever. (INN)