Banking on ‘institutional quarantine’
As per the World Health Organisation, the flu comes in waves, and history has it that the second and the third waves are more dangerous.

“We are expecting another wave and it is difficult to comment about the virulence,” Singh said. “As against the international concept of social distancing, we have been relying on institutional quarantine — this has worked very well in containing the infection.”

Social distancing means closing schools, malls, workplaces and other public places to control the virus from spreading.

Health Minister Kiran Walia agreed the strategy might delay the spread but cannot altogether prevent it. “We have never been under any illusion that we would be able to prevent the spread indefinitely,” she said. “We will modify our policies to suit the situation and address the problem at hand. “Right now, our focus is containment and institutional quarantine has given better results than home quarantine.

“But when cases increase, we will rethink the decision.”

‘Learn from US, Mexico’
Experts say the government needs to learn lessons from countries that have tackled more H1N1 influenza cases. “The government needs to learn what the US or Mexico did and modify those strategies to suit Indian conditions,” Dr Bir Singh, professor of Community Medicine at AIIMS, said.

“Keeping in mind the congestion in our cities, there is little doubt the spread will be far higher in India. So it’s important to adapt quickly by learning from other countries.”

At govt’s end: confusion, late decisions
* At RML, getting information was so difficult that even Health Minister Walia had to visit the hospital at 11 pm on June 10 to get an update on the number of patients
* The government had initially designated only three hospitals — RML, Lok Nayak and Airport Hospital — to treat patients.
But as cases started trickling in, the authorities designated 11 hospitals
* After saying only government hospitals would handle swine flu cases, government recently approached private hospitals to increase “bed capacity”. Barring Max Healthcare, all private hospitals refused
* Helpline numbers for suspected patients was changed from 1075 to 23921401. No reason was offered
* Bed linen and bathrooms of isolation wards were cleaned at RML after protest from patients admitted there
* While it is considered a good practice to start prophylactic (or preventive) treatment while waiting for the test results, patients in many cases were not given Tamiflu until results came in, which took up to 48 hours for NIV, Pune