With Maharashtra experiencing a second bout of unseasonal showers in days, the swine flu onslaught bore down heavily upon the State, taking the death toll to 235.
According to medical reports, Pune district is now the worst-hit in the State with as many as seven people succumbing to swine flu or swine flu-induced maladies on Tuesday itself, shooting up the number of dead to 63 with more than 40 fresh cases recorded on a single day.
The number of swine flu cases recorded in Pune district since January has now exceeded 800, with the district recording almost a third of the total number of cases registered across the State.
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The locus of the H1N1 virus transmission in the district is the township of Pimpri-Chinchwad that has recorded more than 30 cases. A total of 27 patients in the district are said to be critical.
Taking stock of the situation, Pune District Collector Saurabh Rao clarified that while health officials were rigorously monitoring the situation, no government notice regarding the free treatment of swine flu afflicted patients had yet been received.
Meanwhile, in a bid to combat the alarming spurt of swine flu cases, pharma major, Serum Institute of India has announced that it would launch 60,000 doses of NascoVacS (swine flu vaccine) in the market that offers protection against H1N1 and influenza ‘A’ and ‘B’ in one intra-nasal shot.
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