The Hindu : SARS case: Search on for taxi driver

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 23, 2003

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Other States - Maharashtra

SARS case: Search on for taxi driver

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

PTI

The Additional Director of Health, Maharashtra, Y. H. Doifode (right), and the Assistant Director, B. P. Gaikawad, addressing a press conference at a hospital in Pune on Tuesday.

MUMBAI April 22. As three positive cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) have been reported in the State all of a sudden, the Maharashtra Government has asked the Centre to request China, Hong Kong and Singapore where SARS has occurred widely to detect passengers with any telltale symptoms and detain them for treatment in their own countries and not allow them to leave there for India.

According to the State Health Minister, Digvijay Khanvilkar, "the letter went out today" to the Union Health Minister, Sushma Swaraj, "because we think it is easier and more efficient to check passengers as they leave" than check them as they arrive here. Two of the three SARS victims, Stanley D'Silva, and his mother, Vimla, had travelled by the same flight from Hong Kong on which one of the passengers had symptoms indicates from where the D'Silvas may have got the infection; it was passed on to his sister, Julia, before they surfaced with the problem in Pune. The suspect passenger was taken off the aircraft at Singapore.

Another need, conveyed to the Centre and apparently conceded is, for 1,000 speciality masks, so that Maharashtra can "in a day or two" set up isolation units in all its district hospitals. So far, two in Mumbai and another in Pune have come into being for SARS cases. "Setting them up is one thing, but people have to report to the hospitals if they have symptoms," Mr. Khanvilkar told The Hindu. While these precautions are being taken, what is worrying is the manner in which, despite testing positive and despite advice to be quarantined at home, Julia got married on Monday before being moved into the quarantine.

Though initial reports spoke of her having ducked the request to come to the hospital, she actually threatened unspecified "dire consequences" if prevented from tying the knot.

Apparently, top-level officials were aware of her determination, allowed her to get married at a church in Pune in the presence of a "controlled number of guests."

The bridegroom, Sailesh Suryavanshi, the sources said, is one of the several — including even the domestic servants of the D'Silvas — and Julie's uncle have been quarantined to prevent the possible spread of SARS though, as top officials said, "all of them are as of now stable., including all the three D'Silva family members who tested positive.

The search is on for the driver of the taxi who took the D' Silva's from Ambernath, a distant suburb of Mumbai in Thane district to Pune for the wedding.

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