Swine Flu!!!

Today was an off day in SISO with one employee reportedly affecting from swine flu. He came back from Korea this week only and was in the office yesterday. So, when he was tested positive for swine flu, a panic was created in the company which led to shut down of the office for a day. Reasonable enough!!!!!

The team to which the affected person belongs is same as one of my friends. This led to a double panic among him and his teammates.. And they did not waste a single minute having a check-up. Reasonable again.... In fact i am waiting for my friend's report so that i can decide if i also need the to be diagnosed. Hey wait..Just now i got a message SISO HR claiming that it will be safe to work from Monday onwards because they are sanitizing the SISO premises and buses. Cool!!!

Now coming to the real purpose of writing this blog. One might wonder why there is so much fuss about Swine Flu in India. What about other fatal diseases that are so prevalent in India and have taken the lives of so many people across the regions? The number of people who died due to swine flu are far-far less than other major diseases such as tuberculosis (TB), hydrophobia, hepatitis B, AID. Currently, the total number of worldwide infections stands at 1419 with 30 related deaths. In fact, just because the swine flu, initially discovered in Mexico, is imported from the West, it is getting much media-hyped. We Indians always tend to give too much weightage on anything carrying "foren tag", whether be apparels, food, movies, awards or diseases for that matter. Last year we witnessed the similar scenario when there was a panic following Bird Flu outbreak in countries like China,Indonesia.

That is not to say that we need don't need to give any importance to Swine Flu. In fact Indian government is making sure that this disease is not transported from outside the country with every person being quarantined for swine flu in international airport. But what about domestically-borne diseases? Why do we give step-motherly treatment to them? Don't they need to be eradicated from our country after taking so many lives and still doing so? And what about the biggest disease plaguing the country-Terrorism!!!

WHO has declared swine flu a level 6 pandemic considering the effect it has worldwide. On our part we need to take all preventive measures necessary to combat swine flu. Regularly wash our hands, drink lot of water and avoid keeping contact with the person showing symptoms of swine flu such as cold, cough,high fever, fatigueness. There is no need to press the panic button. We have many other issues at the fore. And on the last note my SISO friend not come out with positive result for swine flu. That's a relief!!!