When the flue gets real...

This blogger is concerned as most Indian news channel right from English to Hindi to Tamil to Malayalam to Kannada …all of them are going overboard on swine flue wherein doctors are asking not to panic and this just another flue which could be avoided by taking some precautions. People seem to be getting panicky, this blogger has just come out of an infectious disease and is going through low immune phase and so was very concerned and bought the basic filter mask (well N-95 mask even the medical shops are not aware of!), meantime decided to avoid crowded places if possible at least for one month. In fact the other day I picked up a fight with a fellow at the internet café who was sneezing without covering himself, really getting into my head I guess!!. indeed WHO has declared swine flue as pandemic few months back. When most people live in crowded neighborhood with low hygiene standards, and will have to move through crowded places precautions may not be enough, I guess it hinges on luck, fate…Hoping that things wouldn’t go seriously wrong when most people nowadays do have breathing related ailments including this blogger. Health minister quoted WHO that 30% of population will get H1N1, not very encouraging one would say. When it is going to seep into poorer section is when things will go seriously wrong. I guess infectious diseases are going to increase in near future and yes medicines are getting costly (medicines cost not less than 300-400rs these days!!).

Pune is one of my favorite cities and it pains to see these happenings. Infact Pune does have precedence, when I was doing my schooling here in 80s was when the country’s first HIV case was reported in here. I recall it created quite a sensation in school everyone talking about. We even asked questions to biology teacher (Mr. Panche was his name, quite an absent minded fellow in big glasses) about it. He told not to worry and concentrate on studies!!.