Chandigarh, December 10: With cold conditions prevailing in the city and its surrounding areas for the past few days, seven deaths due to swine flu have occurred at various hospitals here during the past one week.
A 55-year-old woman from Ropar in Punjab succumbed to the H1N1 virus at PGIMER here while six fresh positive cases were reported on Wednesday.
With the disease tightening its grip on the city, three persons including a city resident died here of swine flu on Tuesday while on Monday a woman from Hoshiarpur and man from Jalandhar were among the three who succumbed to the virus.
Earlier, ten persons from various places in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh died due to swine flu at different hospitals in Chandigarh and Mohali.
The minimum temperature in the city for the past week has been settling in the range of 6-9 degrees celsius.
Ever since the outbreak of the swine flu, so far 196 positive cases have been reported here, out of which over 60 are those of school children.
The attendance in schools here has dropped considerably as most of the students prefer to stay home in view of the disease.
Yesterday, the Chandigarh Administration decided to increase the number of screening centres. The new facilities will start at Community Health Centre Sector 22 and Civil Hospital Mani Majra.
—Agencies