Swine flu got your tongue

People at the chest diseases hospital have been warned against speaking to the media

Swine flu got your tongue

People at the chest diseases hospital have been warned against speaking to the media

Talk of swine flu and watch people clam up at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD) where people are flocking to be tested.

Why? After all, the H1N1 virus is not as serious as, say, Aids. But this reporter, who has been going to the hospital for the last three days, couldn't get anything out of the people there not even their names and where they stay.

No need for panic

One reason for all the secrecy is, of course, an attempt to stem the tide of panic.

u00a0The father-in-law of the 29-year-old woman, who had tested positive immediately after travelling from New Jersey last week, told MiD DAY: "We haven't told our relatives or our neighbours about my daughter-in-law and granddaughter. We have told very close family members about it. We don't want to create panic. Unnecessarily, people will start coming to the hospital and will not be allowed to see the patient."

Better safe ...

But with more cases detected, people are becoming panicky anyway and rushing to the hospital. Even people suffering from normal cold and fever flocked to get tested. Many were sent back after testing negative.

Dr Shashidhar Buggi, director of RGICD, narrated the case of a person who came to the hospital to get screened. "He said he had gone to a hotel where foreigners were staying and thought he could have been infected with the virus which was not true."

Dr Buggi says that only those people who have returned from abroad and who develop symptoms within eight days are suspects. We then send their samples for tests. Otherwise, we just counsel them and send them back."

Thursday's developments

According to Dr Shivaraj, duty doctor at the swine flu ward at RGICD:
>>17 people were screened and the samples sent
>>Two of the 17 were babies sent from BIAL u00e2u0080u0093 an 8-month-old and a one-and-a-half-year-old.
>>The 29-year-old mother who was said to be Bangalore's first case has tested negative. But this will have to be reconfirmed.
>>The ground staff of Air France who was in close contact with the mother and child at New Jersey has tested negative and was discharged.
>>Samples of 12 people sent on Wednesday have returned and only one, a 2-yr-old, is suspected to be infected with the virus