When one of us, back from a foreign assignment in Zurich, fell sick, there were less than 20 confirmed cases of swine flu in the country. Suspecting that our friend might have contracted the disease we thought it best to get him tested and ensure that he was not responsible for spreading the virus. However, we realized that even if one wants to act responsibly and get himself/herself tested, information on who to contact and what to do was extremely difficult to find. The first place we looked for such info was google but we couldn’t find any useful information. We also realized that the people coming from abroad were most likely to bring the virus to India and would most likely follow the same approach of searching google for finding information on how to get tested. Realizing the need for a website which not only provides the relevant information, but also shows in the search results when people search for such information, we started work on swinefluindia.com.
The website was up on June 21 with some basic information. We gathered the information from the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare Swine Flu website, WHO site and CDC website. While information was available in these sites, the top results in search engines were links to news articles. So we tried to optimize our pages to show in the search results for terms people would most likely search for. We are no experts in SEO, so we were delighted to be one of the results in the second page of google when you searched for Swine Flu India. We had an average of 20 hits per day for most of June and July, with most of them being from us I suspect. :(
However, August 3 was the tipping point with over a 100 visits and the number of hits per day has been climbing like anything. Our analytics shows an increase of 2,266.52% in the number of visits as of today! Our site is also showing as the first result for the search term swine flu india. We have started and continue to receive many inquiries, suggestions and appreciations from people all over.
As the team who started this site, we are aware of the tremendous responsibility that has fallen upon us to make this site more useful, updated and interactive. We are already working on incorporating more features to the website. Even though we are working professionals who are investing their free time in this effort, we will try our best to be as quick and responsive. We would also like to state that this is a purely voluntary effort and we are not seeking any commercial gains, unlike some of the other websites on swine flu which have cropped up. We are also exploring ways in which we can engage you, the community at large, to help us in this effort. For now, please just spread the word about this website by tweeting the link, mailing your friends and family, posting about it on your blog and sharing the link to this website on social networks like Facebook and Orkut.
The fight against swine flu is going to be a long haul. Criticizing the government is not going to stop the disease from spreading. Working together, not panicking, keeping oneself and others informed is the way forward for all of us. Hoping for your continued support and encouragement.
PS:
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Posts
Good work guys!! hats off to you all..
ReplyDeletetoo cool !
ReplyDeleteCommendable effort and the real test is to keep it going! As of now you are repeating the info that most news channels publish but maybe where you can be different is offering a single point access to all info/faqs/ on swine flu accesible at all times without digging too deep. BTW your info on the testing centres in mumbai needs to be updated. Also the basic swine flu info. My advice would be to keep it simple & precise and extend links to other sites for meaningful content.
ReplyDeleteGood efforts
ReplyDeleteCrisp Information
Can you please add some statistics
covering US, Mexico etc..
It is a good effort. But There is a cause of worry in this case of swain flu. Everybody is concentrating on major cities now, what about flu spreading to remote areas of india like Kashmir , north east and uttarakhand? what the people living in those areas do in case of flu?
ReplyDeleteIs there any information can be provided to help people of those ares?
Appreciate your findings.Great job..
ReplyDeleteGreat site...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information - great effort to put out good information out there when there's so much rubbish being written in the papers!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anonymous. Merely parroting whats already available mainstream is not much help. Real help is to do proper research and post issues of most concern to people which is HOW TO PROTECT ONESELF, children, family...NOW!
ReplyDeleteI have sent research based article to Swineflu India showing how to protect oneself for a measly 25 Rupees! Provided links on why Tamiflu is dangerous due to its severe side effects including death; Why the current H1N1 tests are showing many false Positive result and why the coming Vaccines may end up being more dangerous than the flu! I hope it gets posted prominently so that all may benefit. You can read all about it at gkwell dot blogspot dot com.
Please note I have no personal interest or motives other than to help spread word among the community on how to protect oneself affordably AND effectively.
Keep up the good work and God Bless!
Good job guys. People like you make the government media officials look like dumb fools.
ReplyDeleteTo prevent the disease Unani System of Medicine has to be adopted which is very much effective and without any side effects
ReplyDeleteIn case you have very mild symptoms of disease then give Murabba Banafsha 2 Tola along with Sheera Maghz-e-Kaddu
If you have actually contracted the disease then take the following prescription
SNo Medicines
1 Tukhm-e-Khatmi
2 Tukhm-e-Khabbazi
3 Asl-us-soos (Mulathi)
4 Behi Dana
5 Barg-e-Gawzaban
6 Gul-e- Banafsha
All from S NO 1 to 6 you have to take 5 gram each
7 Unnab 5 grains
8 Sapistan 9 grains
All medicines have to be put in a glass of water and then it should be boiled a little then cool it and take twice a day
In 1918 too this disease caused heavy mortality and infact lakhs of people died in India only
Dr Abdul Latief
Assistant Director
For more details you can contact
Dr Abdul Latief
Assistant Director(Unani)
Govt Of Jammu And KAshmir
Jammu/Srinagar
Mob No 9419189497
Thanks very much for the information. I have posted also posted the websites where one can get more information,will add yours too..
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Anitha
hey guys, great effort, nonethless , could you also give a bit of breakdown in the cities related pages, esp the no of people affected in each city & the no of people cured.. we keep hearing these stats, but no one is sure how to keep a track. If included, this would certainly give an idea about the rate at which the flu is spreading
ReplyDeletethis is a commendable effort.......
ReplyDeleteiam a doctor. and find the info given here very precise,acurate ,and uptodate...
good work guys...never mind the bad publicity..good work always shows..
We can't just rely on so called authorities including doctors! There's something going on behind the scenes, we gotta keep our eyes open & look beyond the mainstream media. Google swine flu metacure, microvita etc & lets take this as a wake up call to upgrade our health lifestyle including body's innate defense mechanism as the virus will keep on mutating...
ReplyDeleteAwesome work guys!!!
ReplyDeleteA good informative website but doing very less to reinstall confidence on people. We should work on that.
ReplyDeleteI WANT TO ASK WHETHER ONE SHOULD GO FOR A CHECK EVEN IF HE HAS COLD & COUGH OR IT SHOULD BE ACCOMPANIED BY FEVER ?? ANSWER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
ReplyDeleteHi Purva,
ReplyDeleteNormally you should go for testing if you have more than one of the symptoms. Generally swine flu patients have mild to high fever. However we suggest that you seek medical advise from your familiy doctor or a general physician, and go for testing if the doctor recommends so.
You can check the guidelines for testing here. http://www.swinefluindia.com/testing.html
Regards,
Team SFI
I agree with Taarak but let me tell you all that doctors, we (media) and you guys, we together only can make a difference to the society and unitedly can fight this infection.
ReplyDeleteBut we don't need to worry as its almost seasonal and most of us even have developed immunity against it..anyway I don't know how often these guys update the site but guys you all are doing a great job and do keep working on this.
All the best and Regards,
Nozia Sayyed
Senior Correspondent,
DNA Newspaper,
Pune
Commendable work, excellent thought leadership..the country needs people like you all..Proud of you people.
ReplyDelete