Four more succumb, swine flu toll mounts to 74

Four persons, including an infant and a businessman, succumbed to the dreaded swine flu, pushing the countrywide death count from the H1NI pandemic to 74 even as 137 more contracted the infection since Sunday evening.

Two fatalities occurred in Karnataka and one each in Maharashtra and Gujarat as the number of those afflicted with disease topped the 2,900 mark.

A two-and-a-half-year-old child, who was admitted to a hospital in Pune, the worst-hit by the virus, on August 21 after she tested positive, died last night, health officials said.

With the infant's death, the toll mounted to 23 in Pune where educational institutions, malls and theatres, shut two weeks ago, reopened on Monday.

A 52-year-old businessman, Rajesh Udhad, was the latest swine flu victim in Gujarat taking the number of fatalities in the state to seven, state Principal Secretary (Health) Ravi Saxena said.

Two more succumbed to the illness in Karnataka where the death count climbed to 14 as nine more tested positive for the H1N1 virus, health officials in Bangalore said.

Fifty-year-old Sarojamma breathed his last at a private hospital in Bangalore while 22-year-old Shivu, hailing from Kodagehalli in Kolar district, succumbed at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases. .