Waling, July 27

The Waling Primary Health Centre in Syangja has issued an alert for the people of Waling and its adjoining areas following the death of a person attributed to swine flu.

Khum Prakash Aryal, 49, of Waling, who had initially visited the hospital with a complaint of severe headache died in the course of treatment at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu last Monday. He was confirmed to have succumbed to swine flu (H1N1) virus by the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, Teku, according to the health centre’s management committee coordinator Dilip Prasad Khand.

A medical squad from Kathmandu is arriving here tomorrow while the centre has already received necessary medicines.

Aryal, in the morning of July 10, visited the primary health centre with a complaint of severe headache and the centre referred him somewhere else for treatment prescribing him some general medicines, the centre’s doctor Prabin Ghimire said. These days, around 100 people visit the centre on a daily basis and of them 70 per cent have the complaint of headache and fever.

Aryal reportedly visited a hospital in Pokhara, then the Grande International Hospital in Kathmandu and finally was admitted to the TUTH where he died two days after being  admitted. Fever, headache, cough, runny or stuffy nose, watery and red eyes and fatigue are known as the symptoms of swine flu. The health centre suggested immediate visit to health facilities if anyone is suspected to have these symptoms.