JOIN USMore schools on alert mode
On the edge, schools across the City preferred to declare week-long closure and advised parents to keep students with flu-like symptoms in preventive house quarantine.
Three branches of National Public School, the Sishugraha Montessori School in HAL 3rd Stage, Vidyasagar on Bellary Road, will now reopen next Monday. Many other schools found alternative ways to guard against the influenza. For instance, the Delhi Public School, North, has made it mandatory for children who report ill to produce medical fitness certificates once they return to attend classes. The school has begun fumigating the classes daily. Bethany High School in Koramangala has asked its students to use masks.
The State Education Department commenced its annual Suvarna Arogya Chaitanya Project and by Tuesday, completed the medical check up for 30 per cent of students across the State. More than a crore students, mainly from government and government aided schools are to be covered in the SACP.
Thirty-five private hospitals have been roped in to help the three government-designated hospitals in the city to cater to the influenza patients.
Besides the three fresh positive cases in Bangalore, test reports of three more patients were awaited. Four patients, all between 20 and 35 years of age, who had tested positive earlier, were admitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD).
The Lakeside Hospital discharged four positive cases after the five-day treatment on Tuesday evening. Currently, they have five H1N1 patients –– four kids and one adult.
At the Victoria Hospital, 80 local people were screened and 50 swabs collected and sent to the Nimhans Lab. Among them was a Nigerian child, who had come to the Narayana Hrudayalaya and developed symptoms. The 40-year-old patient admitted to Wockhardt hospital was stable, and would be discharged from the ICU in another day or two.
But for poor monsoon, Bangalore would have seen an upsurge in the number of H1N1 positive cases or even deaths. Speaking to Deccan Herald over phone from Pune, NIV Director Dr A C Mishra said Bangalore’s weather at this time of the year or even during winter was conducive for the spread of the virus and its transmission. Dr Mishra said this was not surprising, because wet and cold weather conditions increase the chances of faster transmission. Admitting that there was a “scare” in Pune, Dr Mishra said the rapidity with which people are testing positive and the increase in the number of deaths surely called for declaring the situation as a “national problem”.
Fighting the virus
Flu spreads to new areas and claims four victims, taking the toll to 11.
Malaysian badminton coach Jeremy Gan quarantined at Andhra Pradesh Chest Hospital
The latest victims are a 13-year-old girl in Pune, a 63-year-old woman in Mumbai, and a seven-year-old girl in Vadodara
Kerala recorded first casualty when a 33-year-old died on Tuesday evening
Centre rushes teams to all states to help them coordinate the preparedness