Reeda Shaikh’s house is lonely and silent, as if death still lurks in all corners. Both her sisters are not allowed to go down to play and have only recently joined school. The country’s first victim of swine flu, Reeda died on August 3 and it seems as if a curse fell on the city that saw 100 deaths in three months.

“The bitterness is there, the doctors could not do anything at that time and till date there is delay in treatment,” says Ayesha Shaikh, Reeda’s aunt. The family’s lawyer, Asif Lampwala, says that they have filed a case for a whopping Rs 5 crore compensation and the hearing is slated at Delhi’s consumer court next week.

Like Reeda’s, there are nearly 106 families in the Pune circle area (comprising Pune and Solapur districts) who have borne the brunt of the virus since. The official death toll in Maharashtra is 205, says Dr Pradeep Awate, in-charge of the state’s swine flu cell. Pune has had 100 deaths, Solapur nine, Bombay Municipal Corporation area 27, Thane circle (comprising Raigad, Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri districts) eight, Kolhapur circle (Satara and Sangli districts) seven, Dhule five and Nashik 26.

“We have queries from families who demand compensation. There is no government policy on this issue. It is a pandemic and the virus is going to infect several people. The only solution is early treatment for the flu,”says Awate

Dr V M Katoch, Union Health Secretary (Research) and Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research pointed out that the saving grace was the virus not mutating and the Indian winter being less severe than its Western counterpart. Dr A C Mishra, Director of National Institute of Virology (NIV) told The Indian Express that the exposure to swine flu in these three months has definitely led to a build up of immunity against the virus among people. “We are conducting studies to test the seroprevalence of antibodies among various sections of people like doctors, school children, slum dwellers and others. The studies will be completed soon,”he said.

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