2 suspected patients in Chandigarh quarantined

Ritika Jha Palial

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 21

A day after a Panchkula man was admitted to a hospital with symptoms of avian influenza, two more persons showed signs of being infected by the virus and are under observation. They have been admitted to the Government Multi-Specialty Hospital (GMSH), Sector 16.

“Both of them have been kept in isolated wards and are being given tamiflu. Their nasal swabs have been sent to the National Centre for Disease Control, New Delhi, for analysis. We will get the report within a week,” said Dr Gopal Bhardwaj, Head of the Department of Internal Medicine, GMSH-16.

He said: “We are constantly monitoring their condition and prepared to cure them if the symptoms aggravate or the infection is confirmed. There is no reason to panic.”

The patients — a 20-year-old woman from Sector 10, Chandigarh, and a 30-year-old man from Nayagaon — were identified during a door-to-door survey carried out in the residential areas surrounding the Sukhna Lake today. The woman had been regularly visiting the Lake for rowing rehearsals till the area was cordoned off on December 17, when infection was confirmed in a dead goose, and the man claimed to have touched one of the dead geese a week ago.

A total of 2,400 houses have been surveyed within the 3-km radius of the lake to assess the possibility of transmission of H5N1 virus.