Hyderabad, October 09: The panic over swine flu seems to have ebbed in the city. People are no longer storming health camps and hospitals demanding an H1N1 test if they have the slightest hint of a fever.
District Medical and Health officials say people are less fearful of contracting the swine flu virus even as 39 persons tested positive on Thursday.
Speaking to Expresso, DM&HO Ch Jayakumari said, “The number of individuals who are appearing for check-ups at screening centres organised at various places in the city has come down from the pandemic proportions earlier.”
She pointed that only 629 patients had appeared at all the screening centres on Thursday and 39 persons tested positive.
“This was not the case earlier. It proved to be a Herculean task for us to screen thousands of patients at limited screening centres. The numbers have come down by three-fourths now,” she said. Jayakumari added that they had witnessed the lowest turnout on Wednesday with just 412 persons appearing at the screening centres and only 28 turning out to be positive.
Medical officials say that the extension of holidays for schoolchildren and in junior colleges have worked well to curb the spread of the disease.
“Be it the longer vacation or availability of the preventive medical kits, the number so far has come down. But we are still monitoring the situation especially in the wake of second wave of the deadly virus,” a Gandhi Hospital doctor said and added that everyone in the west is predicting a third wave of the virus by winter.
Meanwhile, DMHO officials maintained that they are gearing up for additional measures to be taken in case there is an outbreak of the epidemic in flood-affected areas.
“A total of four deaths have taken place in other parts of the state. So far, we have not received any complaint from the flood-affected areas,” a DM&HO official said.
—Agencies