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My hospital hell

3/10/2006

WHEN heartthrob Dino Morea arrived in Mumbai from Suriname in South America earlier this month, little did he know what lay in store - four days of quarantine in a dingy hospital room.

Dino had to be locked away by health officials because he was lacking paperwork to prove that he did not catch yellow fever whilst holidaying in Suriname.

Said Dino: "I was asked to produce a certificate showing I was inoculated against the disease. I was completely baffled. No one had asked me to produce such a certificate before, nor was I aware of such a disease.

"Anyway, ignorance caused me the pain that I had to go through for the next four days," Dino said after his quarantine period.

"It was a small dingy hospital near Mumbai airport. I was in fact in danger of acquiring fever of every colour from yellow to purple in that place. I was told that's where everyone from celebrities to commoners was quarantined.

"But I wonder if celebrities have to pay a special price for who they are. Fortunately, I was allowed to get my own food and I was allowed visitors. I spent the four days in quarantine listening to scripts and catching up with friends."

Dino then immediately rushed to Fiji for a concert with Priyanka Chopra and Abhijeet Sawant.

He said: "Fortunately, the two shows in Fiji had brought the house down and I'm feeling somewhat better.

"But it will take me a long time to get over what I've gone through.

"The strangest thing was the authorities from Suriname sent a clearance letter saying there was no reported case of yellow fever in the country for a large number of years."