The latest victim of the A(H1N1) virus was a 26-year-old woman in the southern city of Bangalore while an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old woman died in the western city of Pune, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

Pune, some 120 kilometres (75 miles) from Mumbai, has been the worst hit Indian city, with 12 deaths and a cluster of infections.

Two people have died in Mumbai and about 2,000 people have been confirmed to have the virus across the country, the health ministry said.

The deaths come as Indians prepare for a long weekend, with the popular Hindu festival of Krishna Janmashtmi on Friday and Independence Day celebrations on Saturday.

Krishna Janmashtmi, or Dahi Handi as it is called in Mumbai, typically brings hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets to mark the birth of the god Krishna and to watch spectacular human pyramid formations.

Mumbai is also scheduled to hold its annual gay pride march on Sunday.

"We intend to go ahead as planned and are expecting about 1,000 people, unless people get panicky about swine flu," Nitin Kirani, senior editor at India's first gay magazine Bombay Dost (Bombay Friends) told AFP.

The state government of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, on Wednesday ordered all schools and colleges to shut for a week over fears of swine flu. Educational institutions in Pune closed earlier this week.

The release of two major new Bollywood movies was also postponed after cinemas in Mumbai, two neighbouring districts and Pune were shut until Sunday.

The outbreak, which has seen an increase in people wearing surgical masks on the streets of Mumbai and medical centres overwhelmed with people wanting to be tested for the virus, also hit business.

One of the country's largest department store chains, Pantaloon Retail, announced a slump in sales in Mumbai and Pune in the run-up to one of the year's busiest shopping weekends.

"Sales in Mumbai are down by six to eight percent while in Pune they are down by about 20 percent," Kishore Biyani, chief executive of the Future Group company that owns Pantaloon Retail, told the CNBC-TV channel.

Although shopping malls in the affected cities remain open, the state government of Maharashtra has asked them not to discount heavily to bring in crowds of shoppers, the Times of India said.

Footfalls at major malls were down between 50 to 60 percent, the newspaper added.

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