Swine flu patient under watch

The seven-year-old girl the first swine patient in Kolkata will remain under treatment at the Beliaghata ID Hospital for at least
two weeks. The medical team at Kolkata airport has, meanwhile, sent details of all 250 of her co-passengers on board the Thai Airways flight she arrived in early on Tuesday to the state government, said an airport medical officer.
Those among the 250 who hail from Bengal will be identified and monitored to see whether they have acquired the H1N1 virus from her. Details of the other passengers will be communicated to their respective state governments by Writers' Buildings.
Yet another passenger was quarantined on Thursday after he landed at the Kolkata airport on board an Air India Express flight. The 50-year-old man from Ghaziabad, UP, arrived after a three-year stint in Bangkok. On being medically examined, he was detected with fever and breathing trouble. The passenger was then sent to Beliaghata ID Hospital where he will be quarantined.
The girl detected with swine flu has congestion in her lungs and severe bodyache, even though her temperature has subsided. According to doctors at the hospital, she should recover in five days but will have to be confined to the isolation ward.
She, along with her brother and parents, was on her way back from Australia via Bangkok when Kolkata airport officials referred her to the hospital.
A day after swab tests at National Institute of Cholera and Communicable Diseases (NICED), Delhi, confirmed that she had the viral disease, ID Hospital authorities issued a warning for the city. "This is a highly contagious disease, so we need to be careful. We have asked her family to be alert. Her mother has been given a preventive medicine, as she is attending to her. In fact, all the passengers of the Thai Airways flight by which the family travelled to Kolkata should be warned," said Goutam Pal, associate professor at the hospital.
Special arrangements have been made at the ward to prevent infection. All employees and doctors attending to her have been given a special protection kit. Disinfectants, gloves, masks and shoe covers are being used. The patient has been prescribed Tamiflu the only recognized drug for H1NI, that causes swine flu.
The girl's family, however, said they were unhappy with the arrangements. Her mother expressed doubts whether she was indeed suffering from swine flu. "Nothing has happened to my daughter. She has been confined to this hospital without any reason. The conditions here are unhygienic. The isolation ward is extremely dirty," she said. The family is based in Jamshedpur.
But the hospital authorities refused to pay any heed to the allegations. "We have no doubt that she has the virus. The NICED report has confirmed H1N1 and we are not going to have any more tests. She will remain here till we are sure that the virus is not going to infect others. Even though for adults, the quarantine period is usually seven days, it is 14 days for children. She is responding to drugs, but we have kept a team of doctors from NRS Medical College ready for an emergency," said Pal.
It was not clear if the girl got infected in Australia, where she had gone with her family on a vacation. "They have said that all four of them had upper respiratory tract infection in Australia, where temperatures hovered around the five-degree mark," Pal said.
On Wednesday, NICED, New Delhi, informed the hospital over phone that the girl had tested positive for swine flu. In accordance with ICMR rules, the test results need to be confirmed by at least two institutes which include NICED, New Delhi and NIV, Pune.

Her father, who left for Jamshedpur with his three-year-old son, has been informed about the report.