The doctors at the ID hospital, frantically fighting to contain the swine flu pandemic, say more people have been testing positive for malaria and diarrhea than for the HINI virus.

With the fears running high on swine flu, the hospital has seen a huge rush of people wanting to get their swabs taken for testing.

“Of nearly 120 patients who come into the emergency every day, at least 100 have diarrhea. We are also seeing a large number of cases with measles, chicken pox, mumps, rabies and diphtheria. Even at the outdoor emergency, we have around 200 people coming daily of which very few have tested positive for HINI so far,” said a doctor.

Doctors say the ID hospital is running full and has no more beds left to admit new patients. In fact, a few swine flu patients have been quarantined at home due to lack of beds at the hospital.

Even the testing laboratory, with a capacity of 120, has a backlog of the throat swabs.

“This being the season for flu and malaria cases, people with mild fever have been rushing here on swine flu fears. We ask them to get malaria tests done first because in most cases, they have been testing positive for it,” said the doctor.