AHMEDABAD/PUNE/CHENNAI: The higly infectious H1N1 virus claimed its first victim in Gujarat when US-based NRI Pravin Patel (43) succumbed to the contagion at 1.15am on Sunday. This is the fourth death due to swine flu in the country. Unlike Pune and Mumbai, where the patients had contracted infection from a secondary source within the country, Patel died of an infection he probably carried from the US.
Indicative of the rising numbers, Pune reported 42 fresh H1N1 cases on Sunday - two of whom have been put on ventilator - while the condition of an infected four-year-old Chennai boy turned critical.
Patel's wife Naina, who too has tested positive, is in the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad. Doctors say her condition is stable but she has not been told about her husband's death.
The Patel couple run a store in Atlanta and had landed in Ahmedabad on July 31 to spend a month with the family. They took a Lufthansa flight from Atlanta to Mumbai and then came to Ahmedabad by Air India. Their three teenage children stayed back in the US to attend school and Patel's mother is with them.
Patel was admitted to a private hospital after he developed breathlessness and high fever on August 5. On August 7, when his condition deteriorated as his lungs got severely infected, Patel was referred to Civil Hospital where the couple tested positive for swine flu.
He was transfused four bottles of blood to keep up his haemoglobin levels but the measures failed as the H1N1 virus had badly damaged his lungs. After a round of last-ditch treatment advised by AIIMS doctors who were consulted, Patel died soon after midnight.
Patel's relatives said a more intensive screening at the airport could have prevented his death. ``He had slight fever and cough and cold when he arrived from US. Had the medical team screening patients at the airport been more careful, they could have warned him of swine flu and advised him special care. My brother would have been alive if there was more vigilance at the airport,'' said Patel's elder brother Dashrath. The visiting couple were staying with Dashrath at his residence in Ahmedabad.
``Screening at the airport is non-existent. They just touched my forehead to check fever and said go!'' said Patel's uncle Bhikhu Patel, who recently arrived from New Zealand, and spoke to Praveen some time before his death.
Gujarat health and family welfare minister Jaynarayan Vyas said that the death should not create panic. ``We are monitoring the situation closely. I respect feelings of the relatives of the deceased. The virus must not have manifested as symptoms, otherwise it would have been detected by the doctors,'' said Vyas.
Pune, meanwhile, continues to be a major cause for worry. Sunday was the third consecutive day on which the city has reported more than 40 positive cases. With this, the number of H1N1 cases from the city has reached 247.
The National Institute of Virology (NIV) received 436 throat swab samples on Saturday and more than 600 on Sunday. ``The NIV received six throat swab samples of patients with severe breathlessness from private hospitals in the city on Sunday,'' said an NIV official.
While the four-year-old in Chennai patient in Mehta Hospital turned critical, three others who came in contact with him have tested positive for H1N1. The Velachery school, where the boy studied, has shut down for a week amid concerns about the spread of the infection. The state health department has called for emergency meetings with multiple agencies on Monday to put in place strategies and resources to counter the pandemic.
The boy has developed multi-organ failure. ``We've not come across a case like this. His kidneys and liver have failed; his lung functions are deteriorating. We did a battery of tests for viral disease because his blood count was going down. He was positive for H1N1. His pulse and BP are stable till now. Yet, he is critical and we are doing our best to save him,'' said hospital paediatric nephrologist Dr N Prahlad. The patient was in two private hospitals before he was moved to Mehta Hospital in Chetpet.
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