Except for the information on the two CCHF cases that were conformed on Friday, the state health department did not reveal much. While the first CCHF victim Ameena Momin’s husband Rehman Hussain was confirmed to be a CCHF case, Prashant Joy, a male nurse at Shalby Hospital, was also detected to have CCHF virus.
Additional director (health) Dr Paresh Dave said: “Apart from the two positive cases, there is nothing to share.” On the status of 138 samples sent to NIV on Wednesday, he said that the updates on the test results were awaited.
Dr SJ Gandhi, deputy director of epidemic branch of state health department, said: “Till now, only two cases have been confirmed positive.”
However, when asked what happened to the 136 samples out of 138, he did not say anything. On Thursday, the state government had announced that the first batch of 58 samples sent to NIV on Tuesday tested negative. While Ameena's husband tested positive, her brother Hussain Momin tested negative. One more suspicious case, Ameena's relative Leema, was kept under observation in the isolation ward.
On Friday, a two-member team from the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL), Bhopal, visited Gujarat and collected samples of animal blood, serum, blood clots and ticks for testing.Dr AJ Kachhiapatel, director of state animal husbandry department, said: "The two-member team from HSADL visited Gujarat on Friday and took the samples from Kolat. Besides, our surveillance activities are going on in eight villages around Kolat."
According to Kachhiapatel, there are no CCHF symptoms found in animals. "So the samples would be tested to know the presence of CCHF virus in them. Actually, this whole exercise is undertaken to find out the link of transmission of CCHF virus from animals to humans."
