Doctors manning the screening centres have witnessed a marginal decline in the number of people coming for screening and testing in the last two days.
Doctors manning the screening centres have witnessed a marginal decline in the number of people coming for screening and testing in the last two days till Saturday evening. While some claim that the symptoms of seasonal flu may be disappearing faster due to warmer weather, others feel festivities and a long weekend ahead are keeping people away.
On Saturday, about 2,250 people were screened across the 13 centres of the city, indicating a drop of 500-odd people as compared to Friday. The previous week saw a crowd of around 4,000 people rushing to screening centres after the first death was reported in the city.
The Haffkine Research Institute at Parel, that has been receiving close to 400 samples in a day, said that from now they will only test samples of severely ill patients. On Saturday, 23 throat swabs were collected as opposed to 115 collected on Friday. Meanwhile, the BMC claimed that there were no fresh cases.
Temperature
City doctors feel that a rise in the temperature in the last two days by roughly two degree centigrade could have made the influenza H1N1 virus less virulent. “The hot weather automatically makes the virus less virulent and curbs its spread,” said Dr Krishnakant Dhebri, convenor, General Physicians Association. “The virus thrives in a cooler temperature,” he said.
Director of Haffkine Institute Dr Abhay Chaudhary, however, said that it was difficult to say whether the virus could die so soon. “One or two days of high temperature may not kill the virus that could be circulating within a family or behind closed doors,” he said.
He added that it is possible that people have understood that panicking was not the way to deal with it. “Also, we will be getting lesser samples now as only throat swabs of serious patients will be sent,” he said.
Festivities
Also, there were only seven admissions on Saturday and five people were discharged. Dean of KEM Hospital Dr Sanjay Oak said, “In some centres, the pressure is coming down. But major ones like Siddharth Hospital at Goregaon are still witnessing a strong crowd of about 600 people.” “There is a decline in people coming to the centres but we will access and come up with an answer only by Monday,” he said adding that festivals could be one of the reasons. While schools are shut till August 19, government offices have three consecutive holidays.
Additional municipal commissioner Manisha Patankar Mhaiskar said that the pressure was less on screening centres as there were multiple centres in various parts of the city. “People are not panicking after they have received proper treatment and information,” she said.
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