Swine flu toll mounts to 24

Pune/Raipur, Aug 14 (PTI) With an elderly woman and a
teenaged boy dying of swine flu in Pune and Raipur, the
pandemic toll in India has risen to 24 even as Indian
government decided to organise an orientation programme for
experts from private laboratories for conducting flu tests.

70-year-old Parubhai Shinde, who was admitted to a
hospital in Pune in India's western state of Maharashtra four
days back following high fever and other symptoms of swine
flu, died late Thursday night, health officials said.

With this, the toll in Pune, severely hit by the virus,
has mounted to 15.

An 18-year-old boy Sitaram Varma died in Raipur Thursday
of suspected swine flu, the first such fatality in India's
central state of Chhattisgarh.

Varma, hailing from Bhilai was suffering from pneumonia
and throat infection, hospital sources said.

Nodal officer in-charge of swine flu cases in
Chhattisgarh T K Aggarwal said that Varma's throat swab was
sent to Delhi for the flu test as the boy had recently visited
Pune.

Besides the fatalities in Pune, one person each has died
due to the viral infection in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Nashik,
Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Bangalore, Raipur and two in
Mumbai.

As flu cases continued to mount, Indian Health Ministry
has decided to conduct from Friday an orientation programme
for experts from private laboratories engaged by the
government for carrying out diagnostics test for patients
suspected to be infected by the virus.

The decision to conduct the orientation programme was
by the ministry at a meeting in Delhi Thursday with different
private diagnostic laboratories to check their preparedness
in terms of testing swine flu samples.

"It was decided during the meeting with health ministry
officials that two experts from each laboratory who are
engaged in conducting different tests will undergo an
orientation programme before starting actual work on swine flu
samples," Vinay Batra, Global Director, Sales and Marketing,
Super Religare Laboratories said.

"In this orientation programme, their technical staff
will tell us their experience and explain certain do's and
dont's while conducting the tests. They will tell us the
guidelines to be followed while conducting the tests, how to
handle the transportation of samples, how to wear the mask,
the goggles, the cap and use other logistics," he said.

An official from National Institute of Communicable
Diseases (NICD) present at the meeting said, "first we will
give them 10 already tested samples for validation and if they
give correct results, we will go ahead with the commercial
samples." PTI TEAM
ANU
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