Flying with Flu: Indian bandobast better than UK

New Delhi: Along with the usual disembarkation form, the British Airways cabin crew also handed us a large four-page leaflet as we returned from London last night. It turned out to be a swine flu form, informing us that due to the outbreak of the viral flu in the US, Mexico and Canada, the government had to ensure that everyone coming into India was screened for symptoms, and asked us for our details.
The form wanted names, addresses, phone numbers, passport details and even our seat numbers. Everything except where we were arriving from. So, the masked medical staff sitting at makeshift tables before the immigration counters had to look at our disembarkation forms to verify where we boarded the flight! I saw no sign of the thermal scanners set up by the airport management — but maybe that was where passengers of an American Airlines flight that arrived the same time as BA, were sent off to!
Despite all the glitches, there is more visible bandobast in India than London where I spent the last fortnight. As American and European tourists thronged Piccadilly Circus, the British government’s astounding response to the huge rise in detected swine flu cases — it peaked at 1 lakh the week we arrived, and fell to 30,000 by the time we left — has been to set up call centres. More staff have not been deputed to screen suspected cases at hospitals, but less. The idea is to stop people from going to hospitals and health centres at all.
11/08/09 Reshmi R Dasgupta/Economic Times

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Categories: Airports Aug 2009, Foreign Aug 2009