In order to help understand the pandemic better, the Union Health Ministry has decided to examine in detail each of the H1N1 deaths that have occurred in the country so far. A team headed by Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Dr V M Katoch will meet in a few days to assess what went wrong in each of the cases.

The decision was taken on Wednesday at a high level meeting chaired by S Jalaja, secretary, department of AYUSH. The team will also map each death, trace contacts and transmission among family members or contacts, and find out how health authorities had reacted to each case.

Swine flu will be the main topic of discussion when Health Ministers meet in the Capital on Thursday. The meeting will also discuss the assessment of officials who visited states last week. “Each of the states has asked for more masks, testing reagents and Tamiflu. Each team is compiling its report and we will get a clear idea by tomorrow,” said Vineet Chowdhary, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry.

The Health Ministry, had on August 10, announced that teams comprising senior officials from the Central Government would visit all state capitals. The teams, which remained in the states till August 15, assessed state governments’ preparedness in terms of identifying more labs for testing, and hospitals in both public and private sectors for screening, diagnosis and treatment of H1N1 cases.

Chowdhary, who was head of the team that visited Pune, said the situation there was much better now.

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