The Indian Express 01.08.2013
Swine flu claims 2 more lives, PMC says toll 29 since Jan
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) health authorities on Wednesday
reported two more swine flu deaths, taking the toll to 29 since January
this year. With 92 deaths reported from across the state since January
this year, the state health authorities issued fresh guidelines to deal
with the disease.
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.
