Hyderabad, July 16: It’s swine flu all across in the IT corridors of Hyderabad. With Google deciding to close its office for two days after an employee of the company borrowed the H1N1 virus from another techie friend, every IT company — big and small — is worried sick about disease.
While health officials in the state call the fears baseless, many companies and their employees are a worried lot. “We work in an air-conditioned atmosphere and we were told that the virus spreads fast in these temperatures. So, many of us did go to the swine flu centre to get the check-up done. But none of our team members were found to be infected,” a software programmer working for a multinational said on the condition of anonymity.
After Google declared a two-day holiday, word spread fast on mobiles and internet throughout the Hitec City area, which is the IT hub of Hyderabad housing hundreds of technology companies. By evening on Tuesday, about 100 software professionals walked into the Government Chest Hospital, the nodal centre for handling swine flu cases in the state, to get themselves checked for the virus.
The panic picked up pace on Wednesday, with even multinationals and their top brass growing worried about the spread of the virus on their campuses. Dr K Subhakar, who is in charge of the swine flu nodal centre, said, “I have received calls from at least 30 companies asking about the infection.”
Despite authorities assuring people that the government is prepared to handle the health crisis, at least half a dozen companies instructed their employees to keep an eagle eye on their health and come to office only if they are healthy. “We were told not to come to office if any of us has fever or cold.
Unfortunately, since the monsoons are just setting in, many of us have cold and fever,” a senior employee at a multinational BPO said.
On Sunday, authorities detected a swine flu cluster created by a software professional from Houston, US. When he arrived in Hyderabad from the US, airport authorities checked him and found him to be healthy.
However, he developed symptoms a day later. By that time, he’d met his friends working for other companies, including the Google employee, who is quarantined now, creating a cluster of seven infected techies. The seven were confirmed as having swine flu on Monday.
Following this, Google declared a two-day closure to sanitise its office in Hyderabad. The cluster also has an employee from MindTree. However, MindTree has decided not to suspend operations at its 2,000-employee Hyderabad office. The company said none of its projects have been impact at the Hyderabad office due to an employee testing positive for the H1N1 virus on Monday.
The employee has been quarantined and the company has taken several steps with the help of medical authorities to arrest the spread of the disease among its workforce. “During the last 3 days, doctors have conducted awareness workshops for MindTree Minds in the Hyderabad office. So far, no new cases have been detected. MindTree continues to monitor the situation closely,” the company said in a statement.
However, Google’s decision to shut its Hyderabad office has triggered panic among other companies. It has also irked government and health authorities. “Since these companies keep getting employees from other countries, we wanted them to be proactive in handling any swine flu situation. But, Google has been overactive. If there is an infected person on campus, he has to be isolated and treated. There is no point in closing down the office,” Dr Subhakar said.
On Wednesday, health officials spoke to several companies including Genpact and Amazon, which were also worried about the safety of their employees. “These companies are unnecessarily pressing the panic button. We never gave out the details of the IT chief executive officers who were infected and discharged after treatment. What Google has done was completely uncalled for,” Dr Subhakar said.
–Agencies