New Delhi, Aug 11 (Inditop.com) With some people covering their faces with handkerchiefs, dupattas or masks, the fear of swine flu was clear in buses, metros and in public places in the capital Tuesday as India reported its eighth Influenza A(H1N1) casualty.
“I am scared and I don’t want to take any risk which I will regret later. Last night I bought a multi-layered mask from the chemists’ and am wearing it while commuting to work today. With so many people in the buses, how can you be so sure that the person you are sitting next to is not infected with the virus?” Harish Sharma, a bank employee who takes a bus to work everyday, told Inditop.
While not many faces were seen covered in masks, there were several shielding themselves with handkerchiefs and dupattas.
“The most scary part of swine flu is that the symptoms of common flu and this are the same. So when a person sneezes or coughs next to me, I am immediately alert. It probably sounds like a panic attack, but better safe than sorry,” Abha Das, a college student, said, through the handkerchief covering her nose and mouth.
Sharmishtha Sharma, another student said: “For the last three days I have been avoiding crowded buses, no matter how late I am for class. Today for instance I let three buses go and took the fourth one because the others were just too crowded and I wanted to avoid that. I am even wary of taking a crowded metro train.”
A Pune schoolgirl became India’s eighth H1N1 fatality when she succumbed to the virus early Tuesday, according to a health official.
The victim, Shruti Gavde, 13, died in the Sassoon Hospital, barely hours after a pharmacist Sanjay Tilekar died there Monday night, an official from the State Swine Flu Control Room said. This is the sixth swine flu death in Maharashtra.
Pune tops the list of casualties with five deaths so far followed by one death each in Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Chennai.
So far 864 people in India have been infected with the virus. Of these, 523 have been discharged from hospital and 341 are under treatment, union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said.
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