Two college students from Tambaram studying in different institutions have been quarantined at the Communicable Diseases Hospital (CDH), Tondiarpet, on Sunday after they tested positive for A(H1N1) influenza.
A second-year student of the Madras Christian College (MCC), East Tambaram, and a final-year engineering student of Sathyabhama University in Sholinganallur were admitted to the hospital, according to S.Elango, Director of Public Health. Both of them have been put on a course of Tamiflu, he added.
The MCC student hails from Uttar Pradesh and is the son of a senior police officer serving in the North Indian State. He was residing in one of the three halls for men inside the college. (Hostels for both men and women are known as halls in MCC).
Municipal officials said the student returned to the college in the middle of June. As he was suffering from fever and symptoms associated with the A(H1N1) influenza, he informed his father, who in turn called his friends in Chennai for help. A State government ambulance picked him from his hostel room around 1 a.m. on Sunday and took him to the CDH, where throat and nose swabs were drawn for testing. The result turned out to be positive.
Following this information, Tambaram Municipal officials and a team of doctors from Tambaram Taluk Government Hospital in Chromepet, visited the college and screened nearly 800 resident-students of the three halls for men and two for women. However, no one else was symptomatic. College spokespersons said that the college would remain closed till August 27.
Meanwhile, sanitary inspectors received information that another student, S.Ghose, living in a rented premises with nine other friends in Camp Road junction, Tambaram, had also tested positive. He was rushed to CDH on Sunday morning.
Municipal officials said that the student, hailing from West Bengal, had volunteered for a test at King Institute in Guindy. The result of the test was positive and this was communicated to the CDH. The same medical team checked the student’s nine housemates and none of them had any symptoms, officials said.
