Bhubaneswar: Swine flu and dengue menaces have spread their alarming tentacles across the state, even as the state government Sunday assured people of all possible measures to tackle the situation.
Health and family welfare secretary Pramod Kumar Meherda who held a review meeting in the wake of detection of 16 more H1N1 positive cases on a single day promised that the government was taking all possible steps to deal with the outbreak of the two diseases in the state and advised the people not to panic.
The measures initiated to deal with swine flu have failed to be effective as 16 of the 28 samples tested positive for the flu Sunday, which took the total number of H1N1 cases in state to 119 this year.
All the affected patients were undergoing treatment at various hospitals in Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Sambalpur, health officials said. According to Health department sources, the number of dengue cases has touched 370 in the state with close to 60 positive cases being reported from Bhadrak district alone.
The health secretary informed the media that eight persons had lost their lives due to swine flu, while two dengue deaths have also been reported in the state so far.
The secretary said swine flu cases are being reported at an alarming rate across the state. “The Health department has been taking adequate measures to create awareness on the killer ailment. However, there is no need for panic as most of the swine flu cases reported in the state are brought by migrants from other areas,” he said. Meherda who has also reviewed dengue incidence said the number of people afflicted by this was less than the figures reported last year, when eight people had died of the malaise.
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