BHUBANESWAR: Five cases of H1N1 have been detected in the State Capital in the last 48 hours even before the Health and Family Welfare Department could put in place measures to check outbreak of the seasonal flu.The patients have been admitted to five different private hospitals in the City. Four of them are women. The age profile of the patients range from 42 to 79 years. Two of them are from Bhubaneswar while the rest are from Kalahandi, Jagatsinghpur and Balangir.
The patients were admitted in the hospitals after July 25. The blood samples were sent to Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) which found them positive for H1N1. Hospital sources said none of the patients has had a travel history which means they were infected inside the State. The H1N1 outbreak is reported after the monsoon as the season is conducive for the virus to spread.
According to Union health and Family Welfare Ministry, at least 600 people have died of H1N1 in the first six months of the year across the country. Maharashtra bore the brunt of the outbreak with 284 deaths till July second week.
This year has seen a two-fold rise in deaths compared to last year with Maharashtra accounting for most of the casualties, the Centre informed the Rajya Sabha recently. Last year, as many as 265 swine flu deaths were recorded.
Gujarat has reported 75 deaths out of 289 infections, while 1,127 people tested positive for H1N1 and 63 succumbed to it in Kerala. In Rajasthan, 59 persons died out of 407 reported cases. Karanataka has recorded 15 deaths whereas Telangana and Tamil Nadu registered 17 and 15 deaths. The country has registered 12,460 swine-flu cases so far this year compared to 1,786 cases reported last year.
The Centre has put Oseltamivir in schedule H1 to ensure easy availability and accessibility of the drug so that it can be sold by all licensed chemists against prescription. 2015 was a deadly year when a whopping 42,592 cases and 2,990 deaths were registered.