November 26, 2008	Wednesday	Ziqa'ad 27, 1429

PESHAWAR, Nov 25: The provincial health department has failed to establish respiratory isolation units for bird flu patients despite the lapse of one year, sources said.

After confirmation of the first case of human-to-human transmission of avian influenza in Peshawar last year, the health department had planned to establish two respiratory isolation units (RIUs), one each in the Khyber Teaching Hospital in Peshawar and the Ayub Teaching Hospital in Abbottabad, to help treat patients suspected of carrying the H5N1 strain of virus.

However, after one year, there are no signs of any development regarding establishment of the wards. The World Health Organisation had confirmed last year the deaths of some members of a family in Peshawar due to bird flu virus.

Sources in the health department said the WHO had also agreed to provide $500,000 for the two wards, but it wanted the government to bear some expenditure. The world health agency had also sent a feasibility report to the government to pave the way for setting up the units.

The WHO wanted the government to play lead role in the project, but the latter dragged feet on it and the two units are yet to be established. The former caretaker government had directed the health department to prepare PC-1 for setting up the units, but the directives were not carried out.

Genetic sequencing tests performed by WHO laboratories in Egypt and the US on samples collected from three of the four brothers had established human-to-human transmission of the virus. Serum taken from the three was found to have been infected by the H5N1 avian influenza virus.

A WHO report had confirmed limited human-to-human transmission.

Sources said the federal government’s plan to devise PC-1 for the entire country, at a cost of about Rs2.5 billion, had not materialised despite WHO’s warning to put in place measures, especially in the NWFP.

Sources said the government had temporarily allocated 10 beds in private rooms of the KTH last year that served as makeshift RIUs for suspected bird flu patients. Last year, more than a dozens suspected patients were admitted to these RIUs.