Swine flu claims 5th victim in Pune

A woman from Thane district died in a Mumbai hospital due to the  virus, taking the toll in Maharashtra to seven.

Shruti Gavde (13) became the second school student to die of swine flu. She was a student of Ahilyadevi High School in the heart of Pune city. She died in the government-run Sassoon Hospital, barely hours after a pharmacist Sanjay Tilekar died there on Monday night.

Shruti had tested positive for H1N1 on Saturday last and was admitted to Sassoon the next day in a critical condition. She died on Tuesday night.
India’s first swine flu victim Rida Shaikh was an IX class student in Pune’s St Anne’s high school.

The virus has infected many school children in Pune, some of whom had gone to the US for a study tour.

Shruti was the fifth victim of swine flu in Maharashtra’s cultural and educational capital, which has reported maximum number of swine flu patients so far. All schools and colleges in the city have been closed till August 17, while cinema halls and multiplexes too have been shut down for three days to prevent spread of the disease.

In another incident, Sayada Doshiwala, a 63-year-old woman from Thane district, died of swine flu. She had been brought to Mumbai’s Noor Hospital in Byculla a few days ago for treatment and was put on life support on Monday night after her condition worsened.
The city’s Additional Municipal Commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar confirmed Doshiwala’s death. Preliminary reports indicated that she died in the early hours of the day, but it was confirmed only much later that she had succumbed to swine flu.

According to the state swine flu control room, so far, a total of 333 people have been infected by the virus all over the state, with Pune recording 221 cases, Mumbai 81, and Satara 31. Most of the patients in Satara district are actually children from a top-end residential boarding school in the hill station of Panchgani, who have already been cured of the disease.