BENGALURU: The Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD) in the city witnessed the fifth H1N1 death on Friday, taking the death toll to six this year in Karnataka. Dr C Nagaraj, Director, RGICD, said, “A 38-year-old woman from Arasikere, Hassan, was brought in a very bad condition, with complaints of breathlessness, late on Thursday night. She died early on Friday. She had hypertension and the cause of death is H1N1.”
The last available H1N1 report of the state health department on Friday shows five deaths — two residents of BBMP, one each from Bengaluru Rural, Tumakuru, and Ramanagara. Though the first death occurred in March and the second in August, followed by three more deaths in October, the state health department remained unaware.
During the recent meeting of all wings of the health department called by Health Secretary Jawaid Akhtar, the BBMP and the director of RGICD exposed the communication gap between the government-run RGICD that acts as the nodal centre for infectious diseases like H1N1 and the state health department.
Nagaraj said the hospital was equipped to handle any number of H1N1 cases and had procured 100 non-invasive ventilation (NIV) masks and 2,500 Tamiflu tablets.
The hospital has treated three doctors so far of H1N1 — two from their own staff, one from the psychiatry department of neighbouring NIMHANS.
On Thursday, the health department issued instructions to private labs conducting tests for H1N1 to not charge more than Rs 2,500 per test for patients availing treatment in private hospitals and that labs violating this directive will be liable for serious action.
The note from the department also said that all flu-like illness are not H1N1. Currently, in the state, flu-like illnesses are mainly due to Influenza B virus, apart from H1N1, and to a certain extent H3N2, the note said. “In view of increasing number of cases, it is planned to vaccinate health professionals against H1N1 who are at risk of contracting the disease,” the departmental note said.