'Quarantine students returning from other states, countries'

Screen passengers coming from Mumbai, Pune by bus, trains, flight: DC

Addressing a meeting held with the heads of various colleges at Deputy Commissioner’s office in Mangalore on Thursday, the DC said that the meeting was held to collect suggestions from the college representatives as students of professional colleges are the high risk group.

He said that since possibility of infection spreading here in Mangalore from infected persons coming from Mumbai and Pune is high, screening of passengers coming from Mumbai and Pune by buses and trains should also be done. Apart from this, domestic flight passengers should also be screened, he opined.

Quoting that the H1N1 situation in Mangalore is very much under control, he said that a helpline for the same will be in place in a day or two.

Provision of isolation rooms in hostels, creating awareness among people about the disease rather than scaring them, boosting morale of doctors and other hospital staff, distribution of informative handbills about the disease and precautionary measures at public places were some of the suggestions made by the heads of various institutions who participated in the meeting.

Show cause notice

Deputy Commissioner V Ponnuraj said that show cause notice will be served to all those institutions, which failed to send their representatives to the meeting.

During the commencement of the meeting, the DC said that he was disappointed with the number of people who turned up at the meeting.

Calling the institutions who failed to attend the meeting as ‘perpetrators,’ the DC said that the meeting was organised mainly for professional colleges as these are the places, which have maximum number of students coming from other places.

“The absence of medical college representatives only shows their social concern,” he said and added that serious action will be taken against the colleges which remained absent at the meeting if swine flu cases are detected in the students from those colleges.

When Principal of one of the Nursing Colleges said that it was difficult for many college representatives to attend the meeting as they were called at short notice, DC said that the meeting was organised at short notice because the issue was so serious. “However H1N1 does not come with a prior notice!” he said.

About 27 cases were sent for testing of which 7 turned out to be positive in Mangalore. Two suspected A(H1N1) cases were reported in Manipal on Thursday.

The number of confirmed cases rose to five with the suspected case of the student from Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) testing positive for the influenza on Wednesday.