New Delhi: Union Health Minister Ghulam
Nabi Azad on Sunday ignited a row for suggesting that India`s
first swine flu victim could have infected some 85 others
while changing hospitals and apologised hours after an angry
family of the Pune girl accused of being "irresponsible."
A fuming mother and the aunt of 14-year-old Reeda Shaikh
accused Azad of being irresponsible and demanded that he
either apologise or resign for the remarks which he said has
been "misunderstood" by them.
"If she (Reeda`s mother) has misunderstood me, I am
extremly sorry," said Azad in Delhi in the backdrop of the
deepening swine flu crisis.
Azad said he did not in any way intend to hold the
girl responsible for the spread of the virus.
"I am no lesss aggrieved than Rida`s family. She was too
young a girl to die....The remarks wwere not in her context
but in the context of other things. I had said this disease is
highly contagious, it spreads rapidly from one person to
another," Azad told reporters in New Delhi.
Earlier, Shireen Shaikh, mother of the girl who died
here on August 3, told a press conference in Pune "He (Azad)
says that Reeda went to three hospitals and may have spread
the infection to some 85 others. I am asking him to name the
three hospitals. It was only after the death of my daughter
that alertness grew... He is being irresponsible."
Reeda`s aunt Ayesha said, "It is very irresponsible of
Azad to say that Reeda Shaikh may have given the virus to as
many as 85 people.
"How can he say such a thing about a 14-year-old girl.
Did Reeda go to Mumbai, where a woman died of swine flu.
Doesn`t he have children? How can he be so irresponsible,"
30-year-old Ayesha, a housewife, said.
Azad said, "When I said 85 people who were suspected of
coming into contact with the girl had to be kept under
medication, I was only trying to highlight the contagious
potential of the virus."
He said he was "extremely sorry if the girl`s family had
misunderstood his remarks" and said as a father he could
understand the pain of the aggrieved family.
Earlier, an indignant Ayesha said, "It is one thing
sitting in an air-conditioned office and saying all sorts of
things about other people`s children."
If the minister does not tender an apology, the family
members would stage a protest to demand his resignation,
Ayesha said.
"We are not irresponsible parents. Our only fault was
that we trusted the doctors blindly," she said.
Reeda`s mother fainted when she heard the Union Minister
making such "irresponsible remarks," Ayesha claimed.
"We have children of four and six years in the family
with whom Reeda played but they are alright... Azad`s charges
are baseless," she said.
Bureau Report
