Number of COVID-19 cases rise to 724 in India, death toll at 17
The death toll due to COVID-19 went up to 17 in the country on Friday and the number of coronavirus cases climbed to 724, according to the health ministry.
The death toll due to COVID-19 went up to 17 in the country on Friday (March 27) and the number of coronavirus cases climbed to 724, according to the health ministry.
In its updated figures at 9.15 am, the ministry stated that four deaths were reported from Maharashtra while Gujarat had registered three deaths.
Karnataka has reported two deaths so far, while Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Punjab, Delhi, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir, and Himachal Pradesh have reported one death each.
According to the data, the number of active COVID-19 cases in the country stood at 640, while 66 people were either cured or discharged and one had migrated.
The total number of cases included 47 foreign nationals, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare notified that retail sales of anything containing the drug ‘hydroxychloroquine’ should be in accordance with the conditions for sale of drugs specified in ‘Schedule H1 to the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945’.
The Central govt hereby directs that sale by retail of any preparation containing the drug Hydroxychloroquine shall be in accordance with the conditions for sale of drugs specified in Schedule H1 to the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare pic.twitter.com/1YWElo7T4d
— ANI (@ANI) March 27, 2020
Rajasthan
A 60-year-old man, who had tested positive for coronavirus in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara, has died due to comorbid conditions, an official said on Friday.
The patient had heart and kidney related ailments and and had visited the private hospital in Bhilwara where doctors and nursing staff were first found coronavirus positive.
“The patient died on Thursday night. Doctors have attributed the death to his comorbid conditions,” Additional Chief Secretary (health) Rohit Kumar Singh said.
Two others having tested for coronavirus in the state have died due to comorbid conditions.
A total of 43 positive cases have been found in the state, so far which was put under lockdown on March 22.
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Maharashtra
Five persons tested positive for coronavirus in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region — four in Nagpur city and another in Gondia district, officials said on Friday.
With this, the number of COVID-19 patients in Nagpur city has gone up to nine, they said.
On Thursday (March 26), a 43-year-old man with travel history to Delhi had tested positive for the infection in Nagpur. He has been admitted to the Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital (IGGMCH).
“Now, four of his relatives have tested positive for coronavirus,” a senior official said.
Of the total nine COVID-19 patients in Nagpur, the first to test positive in the city was discharged from the hospital on Thursday as he has fully recovered, he said. “Now five patients are currently undergoing treatment at the IGGMCH and three at the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH),” the official said.
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Bihar
A 20-year-old man, who worked as a ward boy at a private hospital where he came into contact with a COVID-19 patient, has tested positive, taking the total number of such cases reported from Bihar to seven, the health department said on Friday.
According to a health department official, a 38-year-old man from Munger district who died at AIIMS, Patna, last week before his test results confirmed that he was suffering from COVID-19, was first admitted to the private hospital situated in Khemnichak locality of the city which has since been sealed.
The district administration ordered all doctors, nurses and other staff of the facility to be quarantined. Samples of 13 people working at the private hospital were sent for testing and the result of one that of the ward boy hailing from Jaganpura area in the city was found positive.
Efforts were on to trace the other staff of the private hospital who would be quarantined as a precautionary measure and their samples will be sent for testing, the official said.
Notably, Bihar had reported zero coronavirus positive cases until Sunday when the deceased patient from Munger who had returned from Qatar where he worked as a welder and a woman resident of the city who is admitted to AIIMS, Patna, tested positive.
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There has been a spike in the number of cases since then with seven persons testing positive in less than a week.
On Thursday, two persons a woman in her 40s and a 12-year- old boy who lived in a house adjacent to that of the deceased patient in Munger had tested positive. They have been sent to a hospital in Bhagalpur for treatment.
Samples of more than 50 people living in the vicinity, however, tested negative.
Besides, two men in their 20s, both residents of different localities of Patna, one having returned from Scotland and the other from Gujarat, have tested positive and are undergoing treatment at NMCH.
Till Thursday, 469 samples from across the state had been sent for testing out of which 415 reported negative and three were rejected. Reports of the remaining were awaited.
In the state capital, about 2,000 people who returned from abroad or other parts of the country before the nationwide lockdown came into force have been put in home quarantine as a precautionary measure.
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Madhya Pradesh
The number of coronavirus cases in Madhya Pradesh rose to 27 on Thursday.
The death toll of COVID patients in the state also increased to two, with a man who had died in Indore on Wednesday (March 25) testing positive for the disease.
So far, 15 coronavirus cases have been reported in Indore, six in Jabalpur, two each in Bhopal and Shivpuri and one each in Gwalior and Ujjain, a senior health department official said. Ten new cases were found in Indore.
A 26-year old man, who had returned from Hyderabad on March 15, tested tested positive in Shivpuri district.
(With inputs from agencies)