Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje at a meeting with her top officials.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje held an emergency meeting of top officials on Wednesday evening to discuss the increasing number of swine flu cases in the state.
The disease has claimed 29 lives in January; over 120 people are still suffering from it across 25 districts in the state.
Speaking to NDTV, Health Minister Rajendra Rathore said the Chief Minister had directed the department to try to contain the rising casualties due to swine flu.
"Of the affected patients, 23 per cent have died. This is alarming," said the minister.
The state health department has also sent blood samples to the National institute of Virology in Pune.
The virus, said the minister, has "mutated slightly in one per cent of the cases". But he assured that this was not a cause for alarm as the strain was still responding to medication.
The health department is currently screening blood samples of all affected patients to see how the virus is mutating and if that is affecting the spread of the disease.
Dr C L Naval, head of the department of medicine at Jaipur's Sawai Man Singh Hospital, told NDTV that they are checking test kits to see if another strain of the flu is becoming prevalent in Rajasthan.
The state government has made swine flu tests, recommended by the concerned patient's doctor, free in all government hospitals. The patient can also get himself tested, without a doctor's recommendation, at 50 per cent of the free. The government will also launch an awareness drive to publicise the fact that medication for the disease is effective only if it's taken in the first 48 hours.