Citizens Must Not Lower Guard Yet, Maintain Caution: Experts Ahmedabad: The death toll due to swine flu in the state reached a staggering 180 on Tuesday, with the maximum casualties recorded in Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Kutch, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar. Officials claimed the deaths and number of swineflucaseshave gradually gone down in the past few weeks, raising hopes that the worst might be over with the onset of summer. However, Tuesday’s unseasonal rains have brought back fear in the hearts of the citizens. From March18 to24,19deathswere reported and 129 patients were tested positive with the killer virus. In the following week from March 25-31, 14 deaths were recorded, while 51 people tested positive. From April1-8, 12 deaths were reported. A senior health official said 20 to 25 people tested positive daily in March, but the number of positive cases has now gone down to 7-8 per day. Similarly,thedeathtollhas also come down. Officials hope the gradual decline in the number of cases would end the epidemic, which had mostly Saurashtra-Kutch in its grip this year with the maximum deaths recorded in the twin regions. Infectious diseases specialists, however,saidthe guardcannotbelowered as the virus is unpredictable and has shown amazing adaptability to temperatures. “Till the cases actually get lessened to a trickle, the precautions in diagnosis and treatment and prompt care should be continued”, a doctor said. Another falls prey to flu The city witnessed another death because of swine flu on Tuesday. This time it is a 23 year old woman who became a victim of the disease. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) officials say that the women belonged to Jamalpur area. With this, the death toll in the city since January this year rose to 30. The peculiar weather condition is being blamed for rapid spread of the disease. Health experts also claim that physicians are late while predicting the onset of swine flu disease in patients and interpret it as normal flu. The AMC had earlier requested the Ahmedabad Medical Association (AMA) to orient general practioners on swine flu disease treatment.