ISLAMABAD The doctors of leading hospitals of the twin cities and various districts have said that the majority of hospitals lacked basic facilities for keeping and treating the Swine Flu (H1N1) affected patients. They expressed these views at a workshop held to train the Health Care Providers as Master Trainers in Epidemology, surveillance and clinical management of Influenza (H1N1) cases. Ministry of Health and World Health Organization (WHO) had jointly organised the training workshop here at the National Institute of Health (NIH). The workshop was part of the series of the workshops being organised by MoH and WHO for training the healthcare providers as master trainers and further impart training to the to the health staff in their respective areas. They urged the authorities concerned to look into the matter and facilitate the hospitals for proper arrangement for treating H1N1 patients. Speaking on the occasion, National Programme Manager Influenza, Dr Zaka gave a presentation on the introduction, situation update and Epidemology of the disease. He informed that MoH, WHO and NIH, had jointly developed a 'National guidelines of Influenza A/H1N1 Pandemic for Health Care Providers. He said that the objective of the guidelines for surveillance, response and management was that these should be used as a reference for all those involved in prevention and control of the disease with an aim to guide and apprise health care workers about the differences amongst the common influenza and Influenza A (H1N1). Dr Zaka emphasized the need to raise awareness among the healthcare providers on how they could protect themselves from this pandemic and also to minimize the spread. He also mentioned that diabetics, obese, pregnant women and health care providers were the high-risk groups. He informed that MoH was trying to get the H1N1 vaccine with WHOs help. While answering to a query regarding the installation of the thermal scanners at the airport, Dr Zaka said that the thermal scanner only detected fever not the swine flu and only a test could confirm if a person was suffering from H1N1 or not. It was also observed that the most susceptible group was the young and robust as it had been the cases so far reported. Dr Durrani also presented the analysis of the H1N1 situation in Pakistan. He shared that the international travel was the biggest means of spreading H1N1 as people come in close contact with each other and thus caused the spread of the pandemic. He informed that by improving the airflow and limiting the movements of the H1N1 patients can prevent the spread of the disease. The health care providers should wear mask and gloves while handling the H1N1 patients in order to protect themselves from contracting the pandemic. The resource persons stressed on the usage of gloves, masks, having isolated units, hand hygiene, cleaning and constitution of infection control teams within hospitals and health facility.