New Delhi - A 35-year-old resident of Indian capital New Delhi refused to enter an isolation ward in a hospital despite testing positive for the H1N1 swine flu virus and has now also infected his mother, news reports said Wednesday. Delhi health officials said they repeatedly requested the patient to come to the state-run RML Hospital where arrangements have been made to isolate and treat swine flu patients, but his family refused, PTI news agency reported.
The patient was kept at his farmhouse in an isolated area near the international airport in New Delhi, officials of the Delhi government's health department were quoted as saying.
"We made so many requests to the family as well as the patient to get him admitted to the RML hospital, but they refused," M Lal, chief of the Directorate of Health Services said.
The patient had recently returned from New York. "The family is rich and there is no law which can be used to make the patient come to a hospital," Lal said confirming that the patient's mother had contracted the disease.
Federal Health Ministry officials said failing to quarantine the patient was a serious lapse on part of the New Delhi health authorities.
With two positive cases of swine flu in the capital, the total number of cases in India has risen to 11.
Most of the infected are of people who have recently travelled abroad and seven of them were reported from the southern city of Hyderabad.
