Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram told Guardian Me­dia there was no epi­dem­ic of in­fluen­za at this point and the more se­vere flu should be dis­tin­guished from the com­mon cold.

His com­ment came in the face of re­cent cas­es of the H1N1 (Swine Flu) and H3N2 flu - and at least one death sus­pect­ed due to com­pli­ca­tions.

Paras­ram, how­ev­er, con­firmed that H1N1 had been cir­cu­lat­ing since 2009 and the H3N2 flu al­so af­ter that, in the re­gion.

“We’ve been do­ing swab­bing and we have H1N1 and H3N2 in cir­cu­la­tion since last year as well as the Res­pi­ra­to­ry Syn­cy­tial Virus (RSV). With the in­fluen­za, the fever is very high grade and comes on more quick­ly with com­pli­ca­tions than the com­mon cold,”

Paras­ram said all of the dis­eases - the in­fluen­zas as well as the com­mon cold - are spread by droplet in­fec­tion.

“There­fore every­one’s cough and sneeze eti­quette is im­por­tant. Cough or sneeze in­to a hand­ker­chief, or cov­er-up. The main thing, how­ev­er, is if you’re ill, is to stay at home - chil­dren es­pe­cial­ly - since it’s spread by con­tact,” he added.

Pararam said it was ex­pect­ed flu vac­cines may be in health cen­tres by end of the week if not be­fore.

He rec­om­mend­ed peo­ple shouldn’t take an­tibi­otics for the in­fluen­za - ex­cept where there are com­pli­ca­tions - but use mul­ti­symp­tom tablets.

Mean­while, the Op­po­si­tion has called on the Gov­ern­ment to come clean on the sit­u­a­tion and not to at­tempt any cov­er-up.

“I spoke to the Health Min­is­ter on the sit­u­a­tion last Fri­day and he was aware that about 20 cas­es of H1N1 had been con­firmed by the Port-of-Spain lab,” said UNC MP Bhoe Tewarie yes­ter­day.

“Yet no­body is tak­ing charge to ap­prise the pub­lic of the full sit­u­a­tion so peo­ple will not fall vic­tim to this and will know what lev­el of care to seek when they get ill. I’d hate to think this is an­oth­er cov­er-up by the Gov­ern­ment. Peo­ple are ill and some may be dy­ing be­cause of this,” he said.

Tewarie added there had been sev­er­al cas­es of peo­ple with se­vere flu-like symp­toms in his con­stituen­cy and two deaths oc­curred - one up to last Sun­day.

“Last Fri­day I at­tend­ed the fu­ner­al of a Mis­sion Road busi­ness­man in his ear­ly 60s who died re­cent­ly. I have no way to ver­i­fy but his fam­i­ly be­lieves his death was as a con­se­quence of the flu which he had. He was treat­ed at the med­ical fa­cil­i­ty. Since then I’ve been check­ing and I found there is a H1N1 prob­lem in T&T. I was told last week by a pub­lic health of­fi­cial that swabs from labs have been show­ing there are about 20 con­firmed H1N1 cas­es in Port-of-Spain,” Tewarie added.

How­ev­er, Tewarie said he fur­ther re­ceived news yes­ter­day of the death of an­oth­er con­stituent of Uquar­ie Road - age 58 - who died last Sun­day of com­pli­ca­tions aris­ing from pneu­mo­nia.

“This was af­ter the per­son had had the flu for weeks. Peo­ple aren’t get­ting treat­ed for the cor­rect thing it seems un­til late and if mis­di­ag­noses oc­cur, it could af­fect peo­ple se­ri­ous­ly,” he said.