New Delhi, July 26: A dozen players of the junior national fencing team have become the latest victims of the deadly swine flu virus in New Delhi, where the list of people with the disease is growing substantially.
There are officially 134 people who have tested positive in the city. Of these, 25 cases were reported from schools — a worrying factor since major institutions like St Thomas School, Sardar Patel School and Springdales School have reported H1N1 cases.
Of the 12 fencers in the 22- member team that returned from a championship in Singapore, six have already tested positive for the H1N1 A. The infected players are Dilana ( Kerala), Tarneet Kaur ( Haryana), Eden Champu ( Madhya Pradesh), Ravi Kumar ( Manipur), Bijoy Dutta ( Assam) and R. Nitin ( Tamil Nadu).
Coaches Mohit Ashwini and Lalit Kumar were also quarantined, though reports of their blood test will be known only on Sunday evening.
“They were perfectly fine during the competition. But these players complained of headache and were coughing relentlessly once the Indian Airlines flight AI 481 touched down at Delhi airport on Wednesday afternoon,” said Sagar Lagu, another coach. They were recuperating at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.
The swine flu alarm, however, is ringing loudly in the schools.
A Class IX student of Vasant Valley School in the Vasant Vihar area of south Delhi was quarantined on Saturday after her blood test results returned positive the previous day.
Moving swiftly, school authorities and government agencies have requested all students from the three sections of Class IX to stay at home for a week as a precautionary measure.
It is not known if the H1N1 virus remains dormant in the body for a while because the girl showed flu symptoms and tested positive late in July though she visited England, a possible source of infection, in early June.
Arun Kapur, director of the school, said: “It isn’t clear how she contacted the flu because she had been fine since June. She is recuperating at Madan Mohan Malviya Government Hospital.”
–Agencies