Three more persons, including one in worst-hit Pune, succumbed to the swine flu on Saturday, pushing the country-wide fatalities from the HINI pandemic to 51.
A death each occurred in Pune, Tamil Nadu and Goa with four more testing positive for the virus in Assam even as close to 2,600 patients were undergoing treatment across the country.
With a 60-year-old man succumbing to the disease in Pune in Maharashtra, the city recorded its 20th swine flu death. All educational institutions in Pune, which reported its first fatality on August three, had been shut for the past one week to prevent the spread of the infection.
The flu claimed its third victim in Tamil Nadu when a 45-year-old man died at the government hospital in Chennai.
The man, whose throat swabs tested positive on August 19, was admitted to the hospital on August 12 with complaints of breathlessness and bleeding piles.
A 67-year-old man, suspected to be suffering from the swine flu, died at a private hospital in Goa, health officials in state capital Panaji said.
Shiva Murthy, who arrived from Bangalore on Friday, was admitted to the hospital with high fever, they said adding he breathed his last on Saturday morning.
His throat swabs had been sent for HINI testing to Delhi and the reports were awaited, the officials said.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi denied media reports about the death of an 18-year-old girl due the virus in the state where four had tested positive for HINI.
"Reports about the swine flu death in the state are not based on facts. There has been no such death," Gogoi told reporters in Guwahati.
In New Delhi, three of the seven suspected HINI patients, admitted to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, were critical and had been shifted to the ICU, doctors said.
With the three fresh flu deaths, Maharashtra accounted for 23 fatalities, the highest in the country, followed by Karnataka (12).
Five people had succumbed to the virus in Gujarat, three each in Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu, two in Delhi and one each in Kerala, Uttarakhand and Goa.
Till Friday, the number of those afflicted with the deadly virus stood at 2,539.
