Pune, August 14: A 37-year-old woman died of swine flu in Pune on Thursday evening, taking the casualty in the severely hit city to 13 and countrywide toll due to the infection to 21.
The swine flu pandemic has claimed its first victim in the IT hub of Bangalore when a 26-year-old woman succumbed to the virus while severely hit Pune on Thursday registered three deaths.
The woman, identified as Roopa, a teacher in a private school, had tested positive for the virus and was undergoing treatment at Bangalore’s St. Philomena hospital also for respiratory disorders, health authorities said.
A mother of two children aged between six and four, Roopa was hospitalised on August seven with pneumonia, and later tested positive for swine flu, they said. She was also suffering from high blood sugar, they said.
Following her death, the health authorities have advised the school, Sudarshan Vidyalaya, where she was taking classes till last week, to declare a break and subject students and her colleagues to flu tests as a precautionary measure, they said.
An eleven-month-old boy Rutwik Kamle and a 75-year-old woman Bharti Goyal died today in Pune, taking the toll in the Maharashtra city, severely hit by the virus, to 12 and across the country to 20.
Rutwik was admitted first to a private hospital and hen shifted to government-run Sassoon Hospital last evening in a serious condition, official sources said. He died early his morning. Goyal, who was suffering from the viral infection, died in KEM Hospital in Pune, they said.
Besides the Pune deaths, one person each has succumbed to the virus in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Nashik, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram and two in Mumbai.
A 40-year-old mother and her 14-year-old son, who arrived in Chennai from Toronto, were quarantined with suspected swine flu symptoms today, according to airport officials in Chennai.
They were quarantined at the Communicable Diseases Hospital at Tondiarpet near Chennai, they said.
So far, 53 cases have tested positive in Tamil Nadu. A four-and-a-half- year-old boy, also suffering from multiple-organ failure, became the first flu victim in Chennai on Monday.
Ten people last night tested positive for swine flu in Gujarat, taking the total number of those afflicted by the disease countrywide to 1,203.
While Pune remained the worst-hit area by the disease with 61 new cases being reported from the city, Gujarat’s 10 new cases took the number of those infected to 27 in the state.
“All test results that were pending have come and according to them, 10 more people, including three women, have tested positive for swine flu,” Gujarat Principal Secretary (Health) Ravi Saxena said.
–Agencies