Jaipur, Feb 26 (IANS) The swine flu epidemic continued to rage in Rajasthan with six more deaths reported Thursday taking the total death toll over the 250 mark since the start of this year, an official said.
"Six more deaths were reported across the state on Thursday. Total deaths reported till Thursday touched 251 from Jan 1 in the state," a medical and health department official told IANS.
Total positive cases as of Thursday evening were 5,262, out of which 2,039 are from Jaipur alone, the official said.
Jaipur also accounted for the maximum deaths at 51 followed by Ajmer at 29 and Jodhpur at 28.
Meanwhile, state assembly witnessed uproarious scenes Thursday as the opposition parties including the Congress demanded resignation of Medical and Health Minister Rajendra Rathore.
Congress legislators, while raising the issue of swine flu, demanded compensation of Rs.5 lakh each to the families of those who died due to the H1N1 virus.
The opposition also staged a walk out over the issue in the assembly.
Rathore, while making a statement, said that the state government is concerned and is doing all it can to stop the spread of the disease.
"The mortality rate in the state due to swine flu is about 4.7 percent, which is much lower than other states," he said.
The state government has so far distributed 32 lakh Tamiflu tablets across the state, he said.
"Besides allopathy, we have also taken help of homeopathy, unani and ayurvedic system of medicine for controlling the disease. We are also conducting door to door surveys and have distributed Tamiflu tablets to persons showing symptoms like swine flu in nearby 50 houses where a swine flu patient has been found," he said adding that test for swine flu has been made free in six government medical colleges, the desert research centre in Jodhpur and three private labs.
A high level task force on swine flu has also been set up to monitor the situation on daily basis, he added.
The Supreme Court Thursday said the national auditor CAG can audit telecom operators' account books to ascertain whether the government was getting its due share from service providers to whom it given the scarce natural resource that belongs to the people.
The Supreme Court Thursday declined to entertain a plea for a Special Investigative Team (SIT) probe into the alleged "clandestine" role of the Indian Army in the Sri Lankan government's 2008-2009 operation against the rebel Tamil organisation LTTE.
"That's why we are committed to a partnership that includes a strong and influential India in the security realm," she said speaking on "US Foreign Policy in South Asia: A Vision for Prosperity and Security".
An estimated 116 million people voted peacefully Thursday in the critical sixth round of parliamentary election to pick 121 MPs from 12 states, officials said.
There is no fight between the Gandhi families, BJP leader Maneka Gandhi said Wednesday, a day after her son Varun was accused of "betraying the family" by Priyanka Gandhi.
