New Delhi, August 27: Swine flu has claimed eight more lives with IT hub Bangalore recording the highest fatalities of four, raising the nationwide toll to 85 on Wednesday even as authorities in worst-hit Pune appealed to people to get on with their daily chores but avoid frequenting crowded places.
Flu fatalities rose to 25 in Pune with the death of a 35-year-old woman Shabana Sheikh who had been on a ventilator since August 22, hospital sources said.
Attendance in Pune schools and colleges, which reopened on Monday after a fortnight’s closure due to the flu-scare, continued to be thin, officials said.
The district administration appealed to people to carry on with their daily activities without frequenting crowded places. Many Ganesh festival pandals displayed tableaux highlighting the do’s and don’ts about the deadly disease.
In Mumbai, Sandeep Gaikwad, died late on Tuesday night at L K Hiranandani Hospital in suburban Powai after testing positive for the virus, a municipal corporation official said today.
According to an official release one more death was reported in Maharashtra and another in Uttarakhand.
With the latest deaths in Bangalore the number of H1N1 fatalities in Karnataka rose to 19 even as 22 confirmed cases were reported today, health officials said.
All the four virus victims were from the country’s IT hub which accounted for most of the deaths in Karnataka–the second worst swine flu-hit state after Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, 177 fresh swine flu cases were reported across the country taking the number of those infected with the virus to 3273.
–PTI