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From NASA visit, Punjab kids get
deadly virus
WSN Bureau
 JALANDHAR/WASHINGTON:
A bunch of students from a Jalandhar school who went visiting the
United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
earlier this month have landed back with swine flu. At least eight
have tested positive for the deadly virus, four more from the group
are suspected, and all the rest have been advised quarantining.
Total number of
suspects was about to touch 100 in
Punjab as this
WSN edition was going to the press.
The swine flu
cases spread a scare in
Punjab even as a
nine-year-old boy who arrived at
Hyderabad
airport from New Jersey tested positive for H1N1 influenza on
Tuesday. With this, the total number of swine flu affected people so
far has risen to 31 in
India.
At least 29 out
of 31 who tested positive for swine flu came from the affected
countries in the west.
 The 12-day
educational trip of the
Punjab students
went awry when the group of 31 belonging to Jalandhar’s Amar Dass
Public School returned.
Initially, only
seven of them were tested positive for swine flu. Samples of nine
students had been sent to the National Institute of Communicable
diseases (NICD) in
Delhi.
Now, a full
alert has been sounded in
Punjab.
The government
has asked the people not to panic but with the state of the medical
care and the repeated failure of the administration to deal even
with the seasonal bouts of gastroenteritis or malaria, panic could
be the only logical reaction of the people.
Punjab’s civil
health structure is in doldrums and neither the incumbent Akali Dal
government nor its predecessor Amarinder Singh regime had paid much
attention to health issues. Ritual statements about the CM directing
the health authorities to take all preventive steps and claims that
the health department “was fully equipped to deal with the
situation” complete the story.
Most of the 93
suspects are from among the people who came into contact with the
children returning from NASA. One of the students was detained at
Delhi
airport while others had reached their home in Jalandhar. They are
being treated at
Jalandhar Civil
Hospital.
Two suspected
cases have also been detected in
Amritsar.
Meanwhile,
another group of students from another school which returned from US
and reached here on Tuesday was examined by the doctors in the
school itself. Six students, one principal and one teacher were
examined and even the driver and guard of the school who accompanied
them in the bus after landing in Delhi were also examined and they
were found unaffected by flu. However, their families have been told
to quarantine them as a precautionary measure and to keep a close
watch if they develop any symptoms.
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Check outbound ones too
The Government of India has now asked the US to scan
all outbound passengers also for the swine flu symptoms.
Speaking at
the 'High Level Forum in Advancing Global Health in the Face of
Crisis in New York', India’s health secretary Naresh Dayal said,
''I would like to say that the developed countries would do a
great service to the developing countries if they could contain
and check the spread of infection in their own countries. I
would, therefore, urge them to take action to stop the spread of
the infection.'' The high level forum was organized by the
secretary general of the United Nation on June 15. |
Most hospitals
lack even sufficient numbers of the sample bottles and capsules of
Tami-flu, the drug to treat the influenza, were in short supply.
Though the
government claimed that it has provided 2500 surgical masks for the
patients besides adequate number of such masks for the use of 30
doctors and 18 para-medics in two hospitals where the kids are being
treated, it remains a fact that most hospitals do not have access to
such masks and at times even an oxygen cylinder is found to be a
luxury.
The school group
had flown to the
US on an
educational trip on June 2 and returned after 12 days.
17
June 2009
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