This Article is From Aug 03, 2009

First Indian swine flu casualty; Pune girl dies

First Indian swine flu casualty; Pune girl dies
Pune:

In the first death in India due to swine flu, a 14-year-old girl, who did not even travel abroad, died in Pune on Monday.

The victim was admitted in a private hospital on July 27. She was shifted to ICU and put on ventilator on July 29. The Pune schoolgirl tested positive for swine flu on July 31.

It must be noted that as many as 16 students are undergoing treatment for swine flu in Pune.

Currently, India has 129 swine flu patients while around 422 patients have already recovered.

Merely four days ago, the Union Health Ministry had issued relaxed guidelines to states to deal with the virus. As per the relaxed guideline, the ministry said that the patients must be isolated at home itself instead of being hospitalised unless the case is chronic.

The ministry had also said that there was no need to shut schools that report swine flu cases. In fact, the ministry had even asked the states to phase out screening of passengers at airports gradually.

Another guideline issued was that the suspect cases should first be taken to the family doctor; not directly quarantined in a government hospital.

.