First wave of scare over, Mumbai prays to keep second at bay

Mumbai in 2009 reeled under the swine flu scare and it is yet far from over as experts anticipate a second wave of the disease in winter. Of the total 23,970 cases in the country, 5,067 were in the state while 249 (30 in Mumbai) of the total 789 deaths occurred in the state.

Though the city has so far been spared from the second wave, the health authorities are still grappling with the aftermath of the first wave that hit Pune and Mumbai badly. A surveillance was initiated in the city ever since the epidemic broke out in Mexico and the US. The city reported its first A H1N1 influenza positive case on June 19 — a 36-year-old engineer from Andheri who returned from New Jersey in the US and Honduras.

Despite a steady rise in the positive cases since April, the state woke up to the epidemic only when 14-year-old Reedha Sheikh, a class nine student of St Anne’s High School in Pune, died of swine flu. The death created panic both in Pune and Mumbai, with hundreds rushing to the isolation centres for screening. The lack of infrastructure, doctors and paramedics was clearly felt besides a dearth of information on the screening and isolation centres.