The Indian Express 01.08.2013
Swine flu claims 2 more lives, PMC says toll 29 since Jan
Samindra Gandhave (50), a resident of Satara, had been suffering from fever and cough since July 20. Gandhave was undergoing treatment at Kalaj and Lonand and was later referred to KEM Hospital in Pune to avail better treatment. She was on ventilator support from July 25 and succumbed to the virus on Wednesday due to acute respiratory distress syndrome.
In another case, 48-year-old Pandurang Phadtare from Pune's Purandar district was suffering from fever with chills from July 23. Being a diabetic, he was on regular treatment and was referred to Noble Hospital as his condition deteriorated. He succumbed to the virus on Tuesday.
Dr S T Pardeshi, acting chief medical officer of PMC, said five patients are undergoing treatment at different hospitals across the city while six are on ventilator support. As many as 16,980 persons have been given Tamiflu since January this year and 208 have tested positive for the virus so far.
Dr M S Chadda, deputy director, NIV, admitted that the infection rate climbed up in the last month.
"We are getting 30-40 throat swab samples every day and a majority of them are from Pune and Nagpur," he said. According to the state health department report, Nagpur has registered 18 swine flu deaths since January this year, with as many as 84 patients availing treatment at different hospitals across the city. The department's report on the status of influenza showed that of the 84 patients, 16 tested positive for H1N1.
A total of 4 lakh people have been screened for swine flu from across the state since January 1 this year, of which 416 have tested positive for the virus.
Meanwhile, the state health authorities have issued fresh guidelines to deal with swine flu. Setting up influenza research committees where there are a sizeable number of cases and deaths, informing within 24 hours if there are clusters in a particular area with an outbreak (a cluster being a population of 1,000 where five persons or more suffer from the disease over a week) are among the guidelines.
The guidelines explain which patient should be managed immediately with oseltamivir tablets depending on the severity of symptoms.
Categories A, B and C have been defined and issued to all district level health authorities. National Institute of Virology, Haffkine Institute, Kasturba Hospital, SRL Religare laboratory and Dr Lal's pathology laboratory are presently testing the throat swabs.
