BMC circular on new dos and don'ts upsets schools
BMC circular on new dos and don'ts upsets schools
Health experts believe that the second wave of swine flu virus will strike the city by the end of this month or the beginning of December and in an attempt to contain the spread, the BMC issued circulars, to serve as guidelines, across all schools in the city.
The guidelines have to be implemented now, but schools say it is practically impossible to follow.
The BMC guidelines say: Parents teachers' meetings, open house, inter-schoolu00a0 competitions, sports days, cultural events, picnics should be avoided for six months as a matter of precaution.
No alert
Executive health officer for the BMC Jayraj Thanekar said that no alert for the second wave had been sounded, but, "Experts predict that the second wave will come in by the end of the month or early December.
We don't want to spread any panic yet though by sounding an alert."
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"The good thing though is that the drug is now available by prescription from a chemist unlike earlier where treatment options were restricted.
We've supplied the drug to 16 pharmacies across the city, including Thane and Navi Mumbai.
There are traditionally two peaks foru00a0seasonal influenza once during the monsoon months of June and July and the second during the winter months.
We cannot say whether the rain will accelerate the onset of flu, but it's important to be prepared," said Dr Jaydeep Gogtay of Cipla that just launched antiflu in the city.
More guidelines
The guidelines also state that if any student or staff show flu-like symptoms such as fever, sore throat, cough, body ache, running nose, difficulty in breathing etc, the person should home isolated and immediately referred to screening centres for examination and treatment.
Malini Goel, principal of Lokhandwala Foundation School ICSE and ICS Junior College, Kandivli, said, "We are taking precautions.
The parents are educated and if a child shows swine flu symptoms, the child stays home and the school and the child's friends are informed.
We have also conducted many workshops with the help of doctor parents from our school; we don't need to stop assemblies, sports day or any competitions.
u00a0
It's not practically possible or a solution to stop swine flu, but we follow BMC guidelines."
M P Sharma, director of G D Somani School, Cuffe Parade, added, "We have doctors in schools and have also made sure our students and their parents are well informed. But we cannot stop activities like sports day or assemblies etc."
Francis Joseph, executive head of operations and strategy, Ryans International Group, said, "We are conducting assemblies in the classrooms and also the sports day, at a classroom level.
Things like swine flu will come and go, but the school cannot be stopped, and neither their activities."
Did Virus Mutate?
Doctors at Sassoon Hospital, Pune, claim that the H1N1 virus has undergone a possible mutation, an observation that has received a boost from a u00a0report of Center foru00a0Disease Control, USA, which states that the H1N1 virus could show resistanceu00a0to Tamiflu, if a certain sequence of amino acids undergoes change.
According to Sassoon Hospital doctors, most patients died of a bacterial infection when the pandemic spread, but from September end, many patients have reportedly died due to a more serious viral infection.
Did you know?
As of November, worldwide u00a0more than 199 countries and overseas territories have u00a0reported laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1, including over 6,071 deaths
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Swine flu death toll in India
Alifiya Khan
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