The weekend stretches ahead for Anna, a Class IX student in Pune. She has been forbidden by her parents to go to the mall or even watch a movie, even as her friends face similar restrictions.

Life in Pune is getting to be a dull affair for children. While most schools have declared an extended vacation till Monday, others in Camp area, where swine-flue casualty Reeda Shaikh lived and went to school, will have been told by the cantonment board to remain shut for another week, till August 17.

That is the fate of the healthy children. Ironically, though, those who actually have flu-like symptoms such as a cough and cold are still finding it difficult to get doctors to examine and treat them.

When health authorities — state and central — held private establishments, including Ruby Hall Clinic and Jehangir Hospital accountable for failing to diagnose and treat Reeda correctly, other such healthcare facilities virtually stopped attending to patients with cough and cold. That is, until, the government machinery once again cracked the whip and warned the community against such a stance.

The truce is still an uneasy one. The two public establishments — Naidu and Aundh hospitals —assigned to test and then treat those who test positive for the H1N1 virus in Pune, between them, have 70. At no point of time has the number of patients testing positive for H1N1 threatened to breach this mark. Yet, the state Health Department has announced that it will add another 200 beds exclusively for swine flu treatment in the next 15 days.

... contd.