New Delhi, Aug 20 (Inditop.com) The national capital has recorded its first swine flu deaths with a 31-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman succumbing to the H1N1 influenza virus, hospital authorities said Thursday.
Samrat Pandya, 31, a resident of Gurgaon, died Thursday morning following two cardiac arrests, four days after he was rushed to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital (RML) in New Delhi.
He had been kept on a ventilator and his heart and lungs stopped working, said N.K. Chaturvedi, the hospital’s medical superintendent.
The other death was of Renu Gupta, who died Wednesday night also following two cardiac arrests.
With the two Delhi deaths, the national death toll rose to 32.
Gupta, a resident of Model Town, had returned from Singapore Aug 15 and had developed flu symptoms since them.
“She went to private doctors who asked her to visit a designated government facility. She visited the RML hospital on Aug 20 in a critical condition. She was gasping and was immediately admitted and put on ventilator,” Chaturvedi told reporters.
Chaturvedi said her sample was sent to the NCDC (National Centre for Disease Control), previously known as the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) and she “tested highly positive for H1N1”.
Pandya, he said, had no travel history or contact with any H1N1 infected patient.
“He came to the hospital Aug 16 with swine flu like symptoms and was quarantined. He was having mild fever, cold, cough, breathlessness and sore throat four-five days before he came to the hospital.”
“We conducted an ECG and found that Samrat has myocarditis. The virus affected his two key body parts — heart and lungs — and both the organs stopped working. He suffered two cardiac arrests Wednesday evening and his condition deteriorated Thursday morning leading to death,” he said.
Myocarditis is an inflammation of heart muscles and happens when the virus affects a person’s heart.
Samrat’s father, R.S. Pandya, blamed the hospital authorities for his son’s death, but Chaturvedi refuted the charges, saying that “he feels sorry for them”.
“My son died because of negligence by doctors at RML and they did not cooperate. Till this morning, we had no clue that Samrat had swine flu,” Pandya told reporters outside the hospital.
Giving details, Pandya said his son was first taken to Sanjeevan Hospital in Gurgaon, adjoining Delhi. Doctors at the hospital gave him paracetamol.
When the medicine didn’t improve his condition, the family took him to the Max Hospital in Gurgaon. Here the doctors advised them to take him to a designated government hospital where swine flu treatment was being given.
“People need to be cautious and if they have flu like symptoms, they should immediately visit a designated government health facility. There is no need to panic about it,” Chaturvedi said.
He added that Samrat’s father had thanked the hospital authorities for taking care of him.
At the moment, he disclosed, five patients were undergoing treatment for H1N1 at RML. All were stable.
“Earlier, we were sending 130-140 samples per day for swine flu tests. But it has come down to 15 samples. The screening of people having flu-like symptoms has also gone down,” he added.
On Wednesday, the country reported 216 new cases of Influenza A (H1N1), taking the total number of infected people to 2,243.
