Bengaluru: As many as 17 people have succumbed to the H1N1 virus in Karnataka so far, making the death toll the largest since 2016.
While 999 have been tested positive for swine flu, five people are reported to have died in two days. The flu had claimed 94 lives in 2015, none in 2016 and 15 in 2017. In 2017, out of 16,864 people, 7004 tested positive, while this year since January, 3,260 samples have been taken, of which 999 have tested positive.
While the health department officials claim that the situation is under control, the numbers say otherwise.
The number of positive cases have seen a sharp rise since September. There have been an average of about 20 cases each day in the last one week and 79 cases in just two days from October 31 to November 2. There were only 39 positive cases of H1N1 from January to August this year.
This is not an actual increase in number but reflects better detection by doctors, says Dr C Nagaraj, director, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases.
"The number of H1N1 cases have been steady for quite sometime now. However, the detection is higher now due to orientation given to various doctors and awareness spread by the government as compared to the detection earlier. So these numbers cannot be seen as a sudden spike," he said.
Bruhat Benglauru Mahanagara Palike area has seen the highest number of cases at 190, followed by Shivamoga with 93 cases.
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