The family of a man who died from swine flu last week is being shunned by people who believe they all carry the virus.

The adults have been told not to return to work, and children are being kept out of school.

Taxi-drivers have refused to pick up members of the family at their Realize Road, Barrackpore, home.

It is all because of the death, last Tuesday, of Vishraj Maharaj, 30.

Maharaj died at the Intensive Care Unit of the San Fernando General Hospital, six days after falling ill.

At his funeral last Friday, less than 60 people turned up to mourn his death.

His sister, Pamela Jaganath, said the family of eight was being treated like outcasts.

She also said that despite the promise by the Health Ministry, no one had come to the home to test for the virus.

At a media briefing last Friday, Dr Albert Persaud, executive director of the San Fernando General Hospital, said the family members of the people who died from the virus would be tested.

But up to yesterday, Jaganath said none of the 50 members of the family in contact with her brother in the days before he died had been tested.

’We don’t have any symptoms, but we all want to be tested because right now the community is scared of us, because they say we have the swine flu. Not even the taxi-drivers are picking us up in their cars,’ she said.

Jaganath said, ’My nephew, my two brothers and I have been told not to come back out to work and that they would call us; and the four children have been told to stay away from school although we have no symptoms of the virus.’

She said, ’We are losing our incomes because of this, and we can’t afford to pay $300 each to do the test privately,’ she said.