Suspected case of HMPV detected in Gujarat

The blood sample of the patient has been sent to a government hospital for confirmation.

Himatnagar: A suspected case of human metapneumovirus (HMPV) infection has been reported in Himatnagar city of Gujarat's Sabarkantha district, officials said Wednesday.

The blood sample of the patient - an eight-year-old boy, who is currently on a ventilator in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a private hospital - has been sent to a government hospital for confirmation, they said.

"The case is under screening. A sample has been sent to a government lab for confirmation, and the result is awaited," Sabarkantha district collector Ratankanvar Gadhavicharan said.

The boy tested positive in the test of a private laboratory, but the health authorities want to double check and have sent his sample to a government lab for confirmation, doctors at the private hospital said.

"The patient, who was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday morning, showed signs of severe pneumonia after which his blood sample was sent for examination to a private laboratory which confirmed that he was infected with HMPV," Dr Imtiaz Memon of Baby Care Hospital said.

After he tested positive, the district health authorities were informed and they sent another sample to a government hospital for cross checking, he said. The child is on a ventilator in the hospital's ICU, he added.

This comes two days after Gujarat reported its first confirmed case of HMPV infection in a two-month-old infant. The baby tested positive in a report from a private laboratory on December 26 but the case was reported late to the health department. Isolation wards have been created in Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and Rajkot civil hospitals as a precautionary measure after Gujarat registered its first case HMPV - a respiratory illness with flu-like symptoms, officials said.

To deal with any health emergency, isolation wards having 15 beds each (total 45) have been created in three major civil hospitals of Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and Rajkot, a statement by the health department said. Gujarat Health Minister Rushikesh Patel said the state's Health and Family Welfare Department was on an alert mode with all arrangements in place to tackle the situation.

All these wards are currently vacant as no new cases of suspected HMPV infection have been detected, the statement said. On Monday, the health department issued a circular asking all government hospitals to take necessary steps to handle HMPV cases. Additional testing kits will be procured and distributed to these hospitals in the coming days to speed up detection of the HMPV cases. Minister Patel on Monday said his department held a meeting on January 4 and instructed chief district health officers, civil surgeons, superintendents of sub-district hospitals in the state to pay full attention to the matters related to the virus.

The Union Health Ministry has emphasized that HMPV is already in circulation globally, including in India, and cases of respiratory illnesses associated with it have been reported in various countries. Furthermore, based on the current data from the ICMR and the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) network, there has been no unusual surge in Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) or Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) cases in the country, it said.