While a 55-year-old man succumbed to the dreaded virus at Wockhardt Hospital at Rajajinagar, Manjunath, a 28-year-old youth, was declared dead at Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences, Whitefield, on Friday night.

Manjunath was admitted to the hospital on Thursday after he complained of chest pain, fever and breathlessness. He was diagnosed as a victim of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which quickly deteriorated. He was then put on ventilator. Fearing it to be a case of H1N1 influenza, the hospital sent his throat swab to Nimhans the same evening. The patient died at 5 pm. The doctors said although they didn’t receive the report from the Nimhans Lab till late night, an official call from the Lab had confirmed that the test results were positive. The doctors said he had no known history of contact or travel. Sources said Manjunath, a resident of Sarjapur,  was newly married.

It is learnt that the patient was not given Tamiflu tablets since he was on ventilator.

However, after his death, the director of medical education reportedly called the hospital and said 500 Tamiflu tablets would be sent for the family of the deceased and the hospital staff.

On August 12, 26-year-old pre-nursery teacher Roopa Anand died because of the H1N1 virus, causing panic in the City and forcing the State Government to take measures.

Though the government appealed to people not to panic, there was a visible edginess among Bangaloreans, a number of whom purchased masks in a bid to ward off the flu scare.

For the State health department, already struggling to arrest the rising pandemic, the deaths came as a double blow. Friday also saw the number of positive cases soar to 126 in the State, nine fresh cases in Bangalore and two in Udupi.

Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa reassured everyone that there was no need to panic, and the State was well prepared with one lakh Tamiflu tablets and adequate infrastructure.

But the scale of the spread of the contagion could be gauged from the fact that even Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases Director Shashidhar Buggi’s 24-year-old daughter has contracted the disease.

The death of Shivanna on August 14 occurred even as the state administration acted, though belatedly, to administer drugs to 35 people associated with the 26-year-old school teacher who died of the disease two days ago. A resident of Vijayangar, Shivanna, a diabetic, was admitted to Wockhardt on August 12 with symptoms of fever, cough and breathlessness.

Doctors at Wockhardt treated him for broncho-pneumonia. But on the morning of August 13, Shivanna’s condition deteriorated. His nasal and throat swab were sent to Pristine Hospital, at Rajajinagar, around 2:15 pm on August 13. Shivanna died on Friday morning.

However, the swab test result, which came in around 4 pm, turned up H1N1 positive.

The Commissioner said the health department would take the initiative to distribute Tamiflu to all designated hospitals from August 15. Today, 45 private hospitals were equipped with Tamiflu. The state government has warned hospitals that failure to admit patients would be met with strong action.

Centre revises treatment norms
With swine influenza cases showing no sign of abating, the Centre on Monday completely overhauled the H1N1 screening and treatment guidelines doing away with the requirement of H1N1 tests for a large number of patients with mild to moderate symptoms, reports DHNS from New Delhi.