One more H1N1 death, toll rises to 11

Child birth fatality in Feb confirmed as swine flu

 The official swine flu toll has risen to 11 in the city with the Directorate of Health Services confirming on Thursday another death due to the H1N1 virus.

Though the death was recorded by the health department on Thursday, the woman had died in February-end at the East Delhi Municipal Corporation-run Swami Dayanand Hospital.

The 18-year-old pregnant woman, a resident of East Delhi, was admitted to the hospital with fever and severe respiratory distress, said Dr Rakesh Singhal, in-charge of casualty department.

“She was on her full-term of pregnancy. Following her delivery, she was put on ventilator. Around two days after delivery, she died. It was a case of strongly positive swine flu. We had put her on swine flu medication from the beginning,” said Dr Singhal. The reports from the National Centre for Disease Control arrived after the woman’s death, said another doctor. The baby did not survive either.

“The expert committee of the DHS reviewed the case and confirmed it as a case of swine flu on Thursday. The woman was also suffering from foetal distress when she was admitted to the hospital,” said Dr Charan Singh, nodal officer for swine flu, DHS.

On Thursday, 79 fresh cases of swine flu were reported taking the total number of cases here to 3,806. Although officials claim the number of swine flu cases have gone down in the past few days, the fresh cases reported daily show otherwise.

Meanwhile, a new study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology has claimed that the swine flu strain in India has undergone mutation and has become more infectious now.

“We will hold a meeting tomorrow in which the experts will study the findings before we reach a conclusion,” said a senior DHS official.

But the National Institute of Virology under the Indian Council of Medical Research, said the strain analysed in the publication and the data of the original H1N1 virus available with it “did not” show any of these mutations, reports PTI.

State Health Minister Satyendra Jain told reporters, “People in Delhi have developed immunity to the virus. The number of cases reported from outside Delhi is higher. We have buffer stock of medicines here.”

Amid reports that the health department is underestimating  figures of swine flu deaths, he said, “There are deaths which are not recorded by the DHS because the patients come from outside the state to be treated here.”