The baby had become breathless and her body had low oxygen. Her lungs had developed water accumulation, or pneumonia, and later the life-threatening acute respiratory distress syndrome.
A nine-month-old girl from Byculla died of swine flu on Thursday. The baby is the latest casualty of the H1N1 virus in the city, taking the toll to 28 since this January. She was admitted to Nair hospital on July 25 and started on Tamiflu medication, but succumbed to the infection soon.
The baby had become breathless and her body had low oxygen. Her lungs had developed water accumulation, or pneumonia, and later the life-threatening acute respiratory distress syndrome.
"We classify children in the high-risk category. Any delay in treatment complicates the illness in them. It is advisable that any child with fever should be shown to a doctor in 24 to 48 hours," said Dr Om Shrivastava, infectious diseases consultant, Saifee hospital.
Since this January, 2,029 in city have been infected with H1N1 and 28 have died. In July, 195 cases of H1N1 were recorded by the civic health department and seven died. On July 31, 11 new cases were detected in city.
Till 2014, H1N1 virus was seen to be thriving in cold and dry weather, but this has changed over the last year. "Since last year, the virus has started thriving in extremely humid conditions and is prevalent in the monsoon. As many as 195 getting infected in the city in July is certainly not a number to disregard," said Shrivastava.
The window period in which a patient can be put on Oseltamivir or Tamiflu, the H1N1 medication, has shrunk. "Earlier, the patient would be fine even after being administered Tamiflu up to four days after the symptoms of swine flu — high fever, headache and chest congestion. But now, this window period has shrunk to up to 24-48 hours. The patient has to be administered the medication within 48 hours at the most of getting infected with the virus," said Shrivastava.
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