The Public Health department has instructed government and private hospitals to improve surveillance of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) and to keep an eye on the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) portal in order to track viral infections in light of the reported HMPV cases.
Health centers are also encouraged to be vigilant and submit respiratory samples of documented SARI patients to the authorized Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) at AIIMS Bibinagar in accordance with the directive issued by the Director of Public Health.
The order further said that VRDL would analyze samples from SARI cases that test negative for common viral infections for HMPV and sequence the positive samples. The questionable samples must be sent by medical superintendents.