Swine flu death toll crosses 50 mark in Pune, alarm bells ring

Of the 50-plus deaths, PCMC health and medical department said that 30 are residents of Pimpri-Chinchwad while 23 are from outside the civic body limits.

WITH ANOTHER swine flu death registered at PCMC’s YCM hospital on Friday, the death toll due to the deadly virus has reached 53 in the last nine months even as the civic body appealed to citizens to take precautionary measures against the infection that refuses to subside, and described the situation as ‘bad’.

Of the 50-plus deaths, PCMC health and medical department said that 30 are residents of Pimpri-Chinchwad while 23 are from outside the civic body limits. Seven of the deaths have occurred at PCMC-run YCM hospital while the rest in private hospitals. On Friday, an Ambegaon taluka resident succumbed to swine flu.

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Refusing to take any blame for the rising death toll, PCMC health chief Dr Anil Roy said that ‘delayed’ treatment by citizens is one of the primary causes of the same.

“Citizens delay taking treatment. They first take over-the-counter drugs, then go to unregistered medical practitioners. Only when the infection worsens, they rush to either YCMH or bigger hospitals. But once acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) sets in, it is difficult to control it,” said Dr Roy.

PCMC refused to blame private hospitals for not making enough efforts to save lives. “It will not be appropriate to blame private hospitals. I will not blame them. Families and individuals have to understand that they have to take steps at their end to save themselves from the dangerous infection. Cleanliness, hygiene and better immunity are the factors that should be the prime focus. And as soon as they get cold or cough, they need to rush to an MBBS doctor, physician or a bigger hospital,” Dr Roy added.

PCMC also denied allegations from politicians and citizens that it has failed to create enough awareness to control the swine flu scare. “The efforts should involve everybody. We hardly see any concerted activity going on in the city. We have not seen involvement of schools or college students or even self-help groups in spreading awareness. I believe that spreading awareness is the key to control the rising infection before it gets out of hand,” said BJP leader Sarang Kamtekar.

PCMC commissioner Rajeev Jadhav, however, conceded that the health department’s efforts to spread mass awareness seems to have failed. “We have made sincere efforts to spread awareness among the people. Other than creating awareness and advising people to take caution, nothing is in our hands,” he said.
Jadhav said that PCMC squads will go to schools and colleges across the town to spread awareness about swine flu from next week. “All our efforts will be directed towards bringing the cases down,” he said.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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Swine Flu