Spurt in swine flu cases: toll crosses 620

The virus claimed 39 more lives on February 15-16, taking the total number of deaths this year to 624. The number of people affected by the flu is 9,311 this year so far, much more than the past few years.

With the toll rising, the number could surpass that of 2013, when 699 deaths were reported. The toll was 218 last year and 405 in 2012. Health Minister J P Nadda chaired a high-level



review meeting in New Delhi to take stock of the crisis, said sources.

As reports emerged of shortage of medicines in some places, the Drug Controller General of India wrote to over 10,000 chemists to stock the Oseltamivir drug but not sell it without prescription. It also asked chemists to keep a photocopy of the prescriptions on which they sell the drug.

The disease claimed 13 more lives in Rajasthan on Tuesday, taking the toll to 178—the highest in the state in years. The toll in Gujarat is the second-highest at 150. Eighty-one people died of it in Madhya Pradesh.