Mary Papayya

Mary Papayya

The KwaZulu-Natal department of health announced measures to ensure that swine flu outbreak does not reach the province.

A number of stakeholders, including academics, port authorities and border control and surveillance officers, were familiarised with guidelines to prevent the spread of the pandemic in the province.

"As part of our outbreak preparedness and readiness we have deployed outbreak response teams in all districts and we have trained them in Influenza outbreak response," general manager of strategic health programmes Sandile Buthelezi said yesterday.

The guidelines on influenza outbreak response have been disseminated to all health facilities and outbreak response teams.

He said the province's laboratories were in place and diagnosis systems and anti-viral treatment has been distributed to all facilities.

"The Port Health Facilities are on the alert working closely with port authorities and points of entry officials.

"The airports are on alert and passive screening is being implemented."