MUMBAI: The number of people to die from swine flu in India rose to six, health officials said Monday, as the government called for calm and people flocked to public hospitals for tests.

The latest to die of the (A)H1N1 virus were an ayurvedic or traditional medicine practitioner in Pune, 120 kilometers (75 miles) from India's financial hub Mumbai, and a four-year-old boy in the southern city of Chennai.

Both patients had been unwell for some time, Indian media reported, quoting state health officials.

A man who arrived in western Gujarat state from the United States at the end of July and a woman from Mumbai both died on Saturday, while a schoolteacher died in Pune on Sunday. India's first swine flu death was that of a 14-year-old girl last Monday, also in Pune, where there has been a cluster of cases.LINK