The staff working at the swine flu ward at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) can heave a sigh of relief for some time as the
number of OPD as well as admitted swine flu patients continues to drop. On Monday, the ward had no patients and the OPD attended to just one patient. Last week, however one swine flu negative patient had died in the ward.
Kusum Dhoke, a 28-year-old woman who had tested negative for H1N1 virus, but was under treatment at the swine flu isolation ward due to her serious condition died of acute respiratory distress late on Saturday night. She was a resident of village Bordi in Akola district.
"She had bilateral pneumonia but had tested negative for H1N1 virus. However, she was on ventilator due to severe pneumonia and died on Saturday night. There are no other patients admitted in the ward now," said Prof Arun Humne, head of preventive and social medicine. With her death the total number of deaths at GMCH's isolation ward has reached 22, but of these only eight have tested positive H1N1 while the other tested negative. The reports of three samples are uncertain as these samples were spoilt during collection or transportation.
On Monday, only one patient attended the swine flu OPD. The total OPD patients so far has gone to 4,949. GMCH has collected 509 samples so far and obtained all the reports. Of these 72 have tested positive, 412 have tested negative and 25 samples could not be processed due to various reasons.
Another suspected swine flu patient, Durga Take, a 50-year-old woman from Pulgaon, who had died of acute respiratory distress on November 20 at the swine flu isolation ward at 10.30pm has also tested negative for the virus. Interestingly, this patient had tested positive from a private laboratory at Mumbai while under treatment at a private hospital in city.
However, she turned out to be negative for the H1N1 virus as per reports obtained from the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune. The last positive death reported in November was that of Nagma Ali, a 13-year-old girl from Betul.