H1N1 death: Official apathy led to lack of awareness

The apathy of Bengaluru Urban health officials led to the unawareness about deaths caused due to H1N1 flu at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD).

The daily updates on Influenza A(H1N1) were sent by the RGICD to the Bengaluru Urban health section, which however had failed to forward it to the health department. As a result of which the data on the flu did not match.

416 positive cases

However, now with the issue being sorted out the reports from the RGICD and also from the National Institute of Virology, Bengaluru unit will be sent to the state health department.

According to the latest update, about 416 persons have tested positive for the flu of 4,702 swab samples being tested. Bengaluru city tops the number of positive cases by reporting 90 cases followed by Shivamogga – 43 and Dakshina Kannada reporting 25 cases.

Maximum number

In Bengaluru, places outside BBMP areas have reported the maximum number of cases with 30 positive cases followed by Mahadevapura zone reporting 28 and Bengaluru East reporting 22 positive cases.

Mahadevapura zone's health officer said as most of the corporate hospital branches like Columbia Asia, Manipal, Narayana Health and Sakra hospital are located here, many patients from outside the BBMP zone are coming here to get treatment for the flu.

"So when the number of patients is more, it is quite natural for the flu cases also to increase," the health officer added.