Pregnant Woman Dies of Swine Flu

Five more persons, including three children, test positive; already the disease had claimed 4 lives this month

HYDERABAD: The 21-year-old pregnant woman, who tested positive for swine flu, has lost her life. The woman from Hyderabad, who was admitted to Osmania General Hospital on December 27 with lung infection, breather her last on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, five more persons, three of them children, tested positive for swine flu on Wednesday. The children are a 17-month-old boy at Banjara Hills, a 3-year-old girl at Medchal and an 8-year-old boy at Old Alwal. The others are a 28-year-old man at Miyapur in the city and a 56-year-old man from Nizamabad. All of them have been admitted to private hospitals in the city.

Swine flu had claimed four lives this month till Tuesday. While doctors have ascribed the deaths to the infection, director of public health Dr P Sambasiva Rao said the  patients were immunocompromised. “The four deaths are not because of swine flu but because of existing pathology. There are no deaths exclusively because of swine flu,” he told mediapersons.

His statement came as a contradiction as documents carried by some officials mentioned that there were eight swine flu deaths this year. Besides, doctors of Gandhi Hospital had earlier declared that the three deaths this month were due to the infection.

The director of public health said five patients had escaped from hospital and remained untraceable. However, another health official said that they were located and necessary action was taken.

While positive cases are detected everyday, the district surveillance officers are finding it tough to trace the patients who leave the hospitals against medical advice. Private hospitals do not insist on the address and phone numbers of patients.

Taking note of this, Sambasiva Rao said that notices would be sent to the hospitals asking them to record the address and contact details of the patients they admit. “Private hospitals should inform us if they detect a case and send us the report,” he said. Rao stated that swine flu was not life- threatening and asked people not to panic. Children aged below two years, the elderly aged above 65 years and pregnant women, if immunocompromised, should be taken care of, he cautioned.

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