Two more people with COVID-19, a disease caused by the coronavirus, have died taking the toll in India to six, reported PTI on Sunday. The country’s fifth patient, who died in Mumbai, was a 63-year-old, and the sixth patient in Bihar was 38 – the youngest person to die of COVID-19 in the country.
The man in Bihar, identified as Saif Ali, has a travel history to Qatar. He was a resident of Munger district in the state, and was admitted to the hospital with a kidney ailment on Friday. However, doctors detected he had respiratory problems, after which they sent his swab samples to the Rajendra Memorial Research Institute in Patna. Ali, who was undergoing dialysis, died on Saturday night but his coronavirus test results came positive on Sunday morning.
The man in Mumbai, who has not been identified yet, was admitted to the city’s HN Reliance Hospital on Saturday. In a statement, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation confirmed the case. “Patient positive case of Covid-19 had a chronic history of diabetes, high blood pressure and ischemic heart disease and he developed acute respiratory distress syndrome leading to death,” it said, according to Hindustan Times.
This is the second COVID-19 death in Maharashtra. However, it is unclear at the moment if the person had a history of travelling to another country.
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The Union health ministry’s latest update confirmed the death in Mumbai, but not the fatality in Bihar. So far, the central health ministry has not confirmed any positive coronavirus cases in Bihar.
Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus positive cases in Maharashtra, which is the worst-affected in the country, went up to 74, said state health minister Rajesh Tope, according to Outlook. At least 10 new cases were reported in Maharashtra in the past 24 hours. Out of these, six are in Mumbai and four in Pune, officials said.
However, the Union health ministry has only listed 63 – 60 Indians, and three foreign visitors – in the state.
The total number of confirmed cases in the country stood at 324, according to the Union health ministry’s last update. The ICMR, however, said the number of confirmed cases were 341. The developments came as India began its 14-hour lockdown at 7 am on Sunday with several states ramping up measures to contain the spread of the virus.
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