Wearing face masks, hundreds of anxious people, including children, rushed to Pune's sole referral hospital to take the test, causing chaos and forcing the authorities to call in the police.
Wearing face masks, hundreds of anxious people, including children, rushed to Pune's sole referral hospital to take the test for the swine flu virus, causing chaos and forcing the authorities to call in the police to restore order.
Two days after a 14-year-old schoolgirl became India's first swine flu fatality, there was a sense of panic in the city even as doctors and the authorities tried to calm frantic parents with children thronging the designated Naidu Hospital for Infectious Diseases to take the H1N1 influenza test.
There were complaints galore by people referred to the hospital for the test. The people claimed that they were not being attended to properly, but hospital authorities sought to downplay the complaints saying the "whole burden" was on them.
Pune municipal commissioner Mahesh Zagade said general practitioners and private hospitals were "overreacting" and referring people with no symptoms of flu to the Naidu Hospital. "This is not fair," he said.
"Even doctors and other medical staff are not taking any risks, they are referring the cases to Naidu Hospital," Narendra Thakur, a doctor at the hospital, said. "After the first swine flu death, there is panic among the people. All patients are being screened."
Some of the parents suggested that private hospitals should also be designated by the government to carry out swine flu tests.
The samples collected at the Naidu Hospital are sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) for further examination.
Meanwhile, two fresh cases of swine flu were registered in the city, taking the total number of H1N1-positive infection in Pune to 109.
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