Flu toll reaches 45, Azad accuses states of not doing enough

Chennai/New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) Swine flu claimed its
second victim in Tamil Nadu when a 47-year-old man succumbed
to the virus, raising the countrywide toll to 45 even as Union
Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday accused state
governments of not doing enough to contain the pandemic.

As many as 159 fresh flu cases were reported from
various states till Thursday, taking the total number of
those afflicted by the disease to 2,401, a Health Ministry
official said.

With the death of the middle-aged man, whose name was
not rpt not immediately available, in Chennai Thursday night,
the flu toll has climbed to 45 with Maharashtra accounting for
22, the highest number of fatalities, followed by Karnataka
with 10. Five deaths have taken place in Gujarat, two each in
Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu and one each in Kerala and
Uttarakhand.

Lashing out at state governments, Azad said they have
"forgotten their duty" even though the Centre was stretching
itself to the maximum limit to contain the disease.

Addressing state health ministers at a review meeting
of the National Rural Health Mission in New Delhi, the
Minister said, "We (Centre) can go to a point, don't expect us
to go beyond a point.

"This is the maximum limit we could stretch ourselves
to. Beyond this the state governments should shoulder their
responsibility which they haven't done," Azad said.

Azad said it was the Centre which was doing
everything, including contact tracing, procuring medicines,
looking for vaccines and training doctors.

While the Central officers were working so hard, he
said, "I would expect state level officer to at least sit till
10 pm and give some report and do something. It is because of
our intervention at the national level that we have succeeded
so far.

"There is a limit for the Ministry of Health to do
this contact tracing and treating. I would request all the
ministries and secretaries to be active and identify the
hospitals," he said.

Soon after Azad finished his speech, Gujarat Health
Minister J N Vyas remarked that as a federal minister, he
should not have made the remarks against state governments.

To this, Azad replied that he was not naming any state
and some states had indeed done good work.

The man, who died in Chennai, was admitted to
government-run General Hospital with swine flu symptoms on
August 13 and advised to take Tamiflu tablets but he did not
show up after giving his throat samples for test, the hospital
Dean Mohana Sundaram said.

He had tested positive when the swab test result came
in, after which the hospital authorities alerted the public
health department giving his details, Sundaram said.

Concerned health department officials traced him to a
private nursing home in Adayar where he had got himself
admitted but he had not informed the doctors there that he
had been administered Tamiflu, he said.

The man's condition had deteriorated by then and he was
immediately shifted to the General Hospital, where he
succumbed to the infection late last night, Sundaram said. The
patient had also contracted pneumonia, he added.

Tamil Nadu had reported its first swine flu fatality on
August 10, when a four-and-a-half year old boy died of the
disease.

A Health Ministry official said in Delhi that Mumbai
reported 18 new flu cases on Thursday, Pune (66), Nashik (3),
Aurangabad (6), Dhule (4), Osmanabad (2), Washim (1), Solapur
(1), Beed (1), Parbhani (1), Chennai (12), Chengalpattu (1),
Delhi (11), Bangalore (13), Davangere (3), Hubli (2), Gadag
(1), Vishakhapatnam (3), Idukki (1), Thiruvananthapuram (1),
Ernakulam (1), Udaipur (3), Noida (1), Bareilly (1), Rohtak
(1) and Raipur (1).

Out of the 11 cases reported in Delhi, a 25-year-old
woman had visited Bangkok. While one person from Pune had
travelled to the UK, another patient from Vishakhapatnam had
travel history of having visited the UK and transited through
Dubai, he said.

A total of 12,604 persons have been tested so far for
the virus out of which 2,401 have been found to be positive
for swine flu. As many as 797 people have been identified
through screening at entry points and 1740 through contact
tracing, he said. PTI Team
SDE
NNNN



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