H1N1: 2 girls from Reeda's school test positive

Two girl students of a school from where the country's first swine flu death was recorded tested positive for the deadly virus on Wednesday night, as hundreds of anxious people including children thronged a referral hospital to take tests leading to panic and chaos.

A Class Ten student from St Annes school tested positive for the deadly H1N1 virus as per the information provided by her father, according to Nirmala Chandy, Vice Principal of the school. She was identified as Netra Bafna.

Fourteen-year-old Reeda Sheikh, a Class 9 student, succumbed to the disease on Monday triggering a wave of panic in the city.

Reeda, who had flu symptoms on July 21, attended school briefly after taking treatment from a general practitioner before she was admitted again on July 27 at Jehangir hospital.

Civic Medical Officer R R Pardeshi said a fourth-standard girl from the same school was also admitted to the Naidu civic hospital, a referral centre fror Swinfe Flu, in the morning on Wednesday with symptoms of the disease.

Throat swabs of the girl were sent to Pune-based National Institute of Virology (NIV) which tested positive for the virus, he said.

Chandy said the school will be closed for eight days from Thursday.

Doctors and authorities tried to calm frantic parents with children wearing face masks for protection rushing to Naidu hospital to take H1N1 influenza tests. Police had to be called in to control the crowd.

There were complaints galore by people referred to the Naidu hospital for the tests that they were not being attended properly but hospital authorities sought to downplay it saying the "whole burden" was on them and that people even without any symptoms were being referred.