One more dies of swine flu in Dehradun, toll touches 19

DEHRDAUN: An 85-year-old male patient died of swine flu on Thursday at Sant Mahant Indiresh (SMI) hospital, taking the number of deaths due to the disease to 19 in Uttarakhand this season.
The patient was admitted to SMI on January 31 with co-morbid illnesses and was put on ventilator support upon reaching the hospital, officials said.
The past two days have seen over two dozen people (27) inflicted with the deadly virus and almost all major private and public hospitals in the city seeing patients inflicted with the disease.
The toll of positive cases are on the rise even as the health department continues to alert people to maintain oral hygiene and the need to safeguard infants and senior citizens from the virus.
The total count of swine flu positive cases in the state has escalated to 125 in around a month’s time ever since the first death due to H1N1 virus was reported on January 3 .
On Friday itself, 16 patients tested positive of swine flu at SMI, four at Max Hospital, three from Kailash Hospital and one each from Jolly Grant hospital and Metro hospital.
Dr SK Gupta, chief medical officer of Dehradun, said, “This is not a deadly virus, people just need to take care of their oral hygiene and also keep their surroundings clean. Those with poor immunity need to be extra cautious. In case, there is any symptom of the virus, they should immediately consult a doctor. We are stressing again and again that there is no need to panic.”
Incidentally, the count of H1N1 positive patients has not only been reported from SMI hospital, which had gathered a lot of negative attention of health department for reporting so many positive cases. Data accessed by TOI indicates that over a dozen positive cases have been recorded from other prominent hospitals too.
After registering several positive cases and deaths from SMI hospital, the health department had raised doubts on the samples being tested in its laboratory.
However, a death audit confirmed that all the deaths were due to the swine flu virus along with co-morbid illness.