BY AMY ROSE HARTE
THE Health Service Executive (HSE) have refused to confirm that two Milford men have caught swine flu over the past week.
The men are said to be brothers who had recently returned from holidays in Bulgaria.
They are currently in quarantine at their home in Milford and have been instructed not to return to work or make contact with other people in the area. There were further unconfirmed reports yesterday (Thursday) of at least two more suspected cases in the Fanad area.
shock
News of the double case has been met with shock and fear in the local community, although the cases are not thought to be dangerous at this stage.
These are believed to be the second and third known cases to have been diagnosed in Donegal.
Last week, an anonymous local woman spoke out about the difficulties she faced after being diagnosed with the H1N1 virus.
Local doctors and General Practioners were this week said to be swamped by worried people who believe they may have been infected by the virus, although the HSE has warned people not to visit a doctors office in case it spreads to other patients.
Dr Karena Hanley, who has practices in the Rathmullan and Milford areas, said she has seen a 'huge surge' in the numbers of worried patients presenting over the last week.
"We are getting three to four telephone queries and three to four patients a day. It's going to get a lot worse," she added.
"Most of them have been absolutely genuine and reasonable concerns. I had one patient said they wanted Tamiflu because they were going out to Turkey but apart from that concerns have been absolutely reasonable," she said.
Such is the rise in levels of concern that Dr Hanley is opening a 'flu centre' in both practices next week, dedicated areas for suspected cases that are completely separate from all clinical and waiting areas.
"We know we've gone past the stage of containment. We can't stop it spreading - we're now in the stage of damage limitation", Dr Hanley said.
Responding to a query from the Donegal News, a HSE spokesperson said it was not policy to divulge details of confirmed cases.
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