Staff Correspondent
Port Blair, Feb 09: The Health Department recently received a written request to take preventive measures before docking of passenger ship MV Harshavardhana as according to the letter there were many swine flu cases onboard.
The letter was sent by a regional group connected with Telugu Community.
MV Harshavardhana was scheduled to arrive at Port Blair on Sunday from Vizag with nearly 730 passengers.
Not only this, the Health department also received several phone calls in this regard.
The letter and such phone calls triggered an alarm in Health Department, which initiated necessary protocol immediately.
The health department contacted the Port Control Tower to communicate with ship. Initially the ship could not be contacted but when the communication was established with the ship the Doctor and the Captain onboard the ship intimated that there is no such cases.
However, to ensure total safety the Health Department team in association with the Police Department decided to quarantine the ship before the disembarkation of passengers, soon after its arrival.
Finally, in the late evening on Sunday when the ship reached Haddo Port, two doctors of Health Department Dr. Abhijeet Ray and Dr. Omkar Singh boarded the ship at 9.00 AM with necessary testing equipment and checked patients.
During check-up it was found that out of 730 passengers only 19 had symptoms of cold and high temperature, which is believed to be normal. No passengers had symptoms of Swine Flu, it is reported.
In last sailing of MV Harshavardhana from Port Blair to Vizag there were 450 passengers and 14 had fever and cold.
Hence the Health officials confirmed that it was just a hoax call, which triggered panic among authorities as well as passengers.
Because of the Hoax call the disembarkation of passengers was delayed by two hours.
