‘Numaish’ this season has a ‘swine flu’ touch to it. Unmindful of the advice from health experts to keep off public spaces, Hyderabadi s continue to throng the All India Industrial Exhibition (AIIE), albeit with masks on their faces and precautions in their head.
“It is a custom for us to visit the exhibition every year, and we did not want to miss this year too in spite of the prevalence of swine flu,” said Barkatpura resident Rajmohan, an accountant who had come with 10 members of his family. “I bought masks for all my family members and made sure they wore it to exhibition.”
And face masks are the latest addition to dozens of products and goods found outside the exhibition.
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“I have been selling close to 200 masks every day,” said Afzal, a seller squatted right outside the exhibition. “Initially, there were only a few who were selling them, but now a lot of people are doing it. There is a lot of demand for the masks and sometimes all my stock is sold in a single day.”
The visitors have been coming prepared with their own set of do’s and don’ts to avoid contracting the dreadful flu. “I have told my children not to touch the hand of any shopkeeper or walk in the midst of the crowd,” said Hemalatha, a homemaker who visited the ‘Numaish’ with her family on Sunday.
The footfall at the exhibition, meanwhile, has suffered little on account of the influenza scare. Saturday saw close to 65,000 visitors in attendance, and the management was confident of the number touching 75,000 on Sunday.
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“Last year, the total number of visitors was 11 lakh at the end of January. This year, it is around 10.75 lakh,” said AIIE Society secretary P. Narotham Reddy. “The increasing number of swine flu cases this season has not made much of a difference to the overall visitor count. In fact, we expect that it would cross even last year’s footfall.”
This year, the AIIE committee has made arrangements to relay precautionary messages related to swine flu through their internal radio.