City gets a grip over swine flu scare

The city seems to have learnt to live with swine flu. Masked faces no longer peer out of suburban trains, women out shopping are not covering their faces with dupattas, malls are crowded again. And people are not flocking to hospitals, insisting on swine flu tests.

The city seems to have learnt to live with swine flu.

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Masked faces no longer peer out of suburban trains, women out shopping are not covering their faces with dupattas, malls are crowded again. And people are not flocking to hospitals, insisting on swine flu tests.

The number of people reporting for screening across Mumbai is not as high as it was in early August. Under 300 were screened on Sunday, 965 on Monday, compared to nearly 3,000 on August 13, and about 2,800 on August 14.

Kasturba Hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Umesh Aigal said most people now coming for screening have flu-like symptoms, unlike earlier when even those feeling perfectly fine came to rule out swine flu.

The civic body plans to integrate screening with regular Out Patient Departments in the long run. “We might discontinue the mobile vans that now go to slums to screen people,” said BMC Executive Health Officer Dr Jairaj Thanekar. He mentioned
plans to expand the number of screening centres to 100, and to make swine flu screening part of routine hospital work.

Monsoon-related ailments killed 73 people in August, with malaria alone accounting for 41 deaths. Three more malaria-related deaths were reported on Monday.