BHUBANESWAR: With four more deaths in 24 hours, the swine flu toll in the State rose to 42, an all-time high in Odisha which is still searching a way to control the situation and prevent the disease from spreading further.
The number of affected persons is also on an upward spiral with as many as 1,111 samples tested so far and 361 found H1N1 positive. Six persons, including four women, tested positive on Wednesday.
The deceased include a 55-year-old woman, who succumbed to the virus at SCB Medical College and Hospital here on Wednesday. The woman has been identified as Kalpana Jena of Damodarpatana under Tirtol police limits in Jagatsinghpur district. She was suffering from multiple diseases like type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Osteo-arthritics of the knee and acute anaemia and kept on ventilator after her condition deteriorated but died in the afternoon, said SCB Swine Flu Nodal Officer, Prof Manoranjan Patnaik.
Another girl, a 14-year-old Malabika Sahani of Patharapata in Kandhamal district who was suffering from Cerebral palsy and seizure disorder too died in SCBMCH.With the winter and festival season approaching, Odisha is starring at a worse situation as the virus transmits faster in crowds. After the outbreak across the country in 2009, the State had come under the grip of the virus in 2010 and 2015 when respectively 29 and 13 persons had died of the disease. While 92 tested positive in 2010, the number of affected was 75 in 2015.
Even as people affected with swine flu are dying almost everyday, both in private and State-run hospitals, health officials claimed that most of the deaths occurred due to co-morbid conditions.
An official said diabetes, kidney diseases, cancer, tuberculosis, cardio-respiratory failure, obesity, hypertension, hypothyroidism, HIV, pneumonia, alcoholic liver disease and coronary artery disease are co-morbid conditions.He said swine flu is a viral infection as it affects every organ in the body, mostly lungs. Co-morbid patients have very low capacity to withstand stress-full situations leading to their deaths, he said.