Swine Flu India – A fight against pandemic is an attempt to bring in one place useful information that would help the citizens to fight the spread of H1N1 Swine flu. Started by three “techies” from Bengaluru, the site has received around 60,000 visits and over 1,50,000 pageviews in a short span of time. The site shows as the first result in Google for the search query “Swine Flu India”. The site is a voluntary effort and does not seek any monetary gains.

“You ride to battle, but not to victory” – The Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King

The pace at which things have changed over the past few days is something that we three are unable to keep up with. We have other commitments (our day jobs) and devote our free time in improving and maintaining this site, answering queries we receive by mail and managing the twitter account and facebook page we have created. Given the fast changing sequence of events and given our limited time, we simply cannot keep up with pace of changes. So will this website remain a potent weapon in the fight against pandemic?

“Har desh perfect nahin hota... use perfect banana padta hai” - Rang De Basanti

“Be the change you want to see in this world” – Mahatma Gandhi

Do the above lines strike a chord with you? If yes, then read on...

Pranav Prakash, a software engineer from Pune, visited our site and found that the information we had was outdated. Many new screening centres had opened up in Pune and should have been available on our site. He not just informed us about the short-coming, but coordinated with us to provide the info about the new screening centres. He continues to provide us with suggestions and information. We have thanked Pranav on our credits page for his selfless acts. But this fight needs more warriors like Pranav, and we are sure there are many out there who are wondering what they can do to help. Calling all warriors to “Join the Fight!”

Here's how you can help :

Code your Changes (Sub:updated page)

The pages in swinefluindia.com are built using simple HTML and CSS. So if you want to add some information to a page, simply modify the page and send it across to us. For example, you want to add a few more screening centres in Mumbai. Go to the Mumbai page on our website and save a local copy of the page. Open the local copy of the webpage using any HTML editor and add the information that you want to add. Test your page in any of the modern browsers (We test on IE8, FF3 and Chrome) to ensure everything’s working fine. Add a short description in the Change History and mail the page to us. If you have changed anything in the style-sheet, follow the same procedure there. It is not necessary that any info be added, for you may just improve the look and feel of existing pages. We will then compare your version of the page with our version, do the necessary testing and then upload the changes with your contribution added in the credits page.

Send the updated page to swinefluindia AT gmail DOT com and ensure that the Subject is “updated page” (all lower case). We use filters and labels to screen our emails, so a wrong subject line would result in an unnecessary delay. Also, copy and paste the change description you wrote in the page, in the body of your email so it makes it easy for us to understand what you have sent.

All emails received with “updated page” as subject will be given the highest priority. Please read these guidelines before you send anything. For technical issues and queries mail us with the subject "tech support"

Mail us changes and suggestions (Sub:updated info)

We have our hands full and information is changing pretty fast. We may not even know what new info has come up. You can help us by providing info. We believe we will get the maximum number of responses in this category of contribution. The guidelines mentioned for info submission mentioned above stand, so please read them. Please make sure that the subject of the mail you send is “updated info” (all lower case). Your contribution will be acknowledged in the credits page as and when the info is updated.

Publicize the site

Swinefluindia.com is a voluntary initiative and we do not seek any monetary gains. This also means that we are dependent on the community for publicity of the site. You can publicize this site by telling your friends and family about it, writing about the site and the community initiative on your blog, sharing it with people on social networking sites like twitter, Facebook and Orkut or simply emailing (community beneficial spamming!) about the site to your friends and groups like google and yahoo groups. When a 100 people get to know about the site, 80 will actually visit it, 60 will read this blog about joining the fight, 40 will think about joining the fight, 20 will put an effort to find ways in which they can contribute, 10 will find ways in which they can contribute, 5 will end up contributing to the site. The more people get to know about this site, the more people will contribute, the more relevant this site will become.

Looking forward for your support and contributions!