Coronavirus Updates: India Total Cases Rise To 724, Including 66 Cured

India has a total of 724 confirmed Covid-19 cases as of Friday morning, according to data provided on the Health Ministry website. This includes 66 cured and 17 who succumbed to the respiratory illness. Total number of cases have tripled in the last one week.

This marks the entry into India’s third day of the 21-day mandatory lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While there is a general decline in the number of new cases detected, this is not the time yet to be relaxed about the situation, Joint Health Secretary Luv Agarwal said in a press conference on Thursday. “We are in the local transmission stage currently. We will notify if we find traces of community transmission.”

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman yesterday announced a slew of measures while to mitigate the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak. The RBI today, announced another set of measures including deferment of loan payments for three months.

Meanwhile cases around the world reached 5.32 lakh, while the death toll crossed 24,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. 1.2 lakh of the confirmed patients have recovered.

Track latest updates on how the coronavirus situation is evolving in India here:

All Kendriya Vidyalaya school buildings will be used for temporarily quarantining likely Covid-19 cases.

The Indian Council of Medical Research has asked India's Department of Biotechnology to look at the development of a vaccine for Covid-19, Chief epidemiologist RR Gangakhedkar said in a press conference.

ICMR is also keeping a watch on the thirty scientific groups that are working on developing a vaccine. Out of these thirty, five are going for animal toxicity studies, he said. "We have indicated our willingness to go for vaccine trials if they pass out animal studies for Indian population," Gangakhedkar said.

India is likely to join World Health Organisation's Solidarity trials that are aimed at generating robust high-quality data for Covid-19 treatments, according to Indian Council of Medical Research's Chief epidemiologist RR Gangakhedkar.

"We didn’t participate earlier, because our numbers were small," he said at a press conference today. "We are also making effort to develop indigenous diagnostics."

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom had announced the solidarity trials last week where a number of countries would come together to study which treatments were the most effective in combating the Covid-19 infection. The trial also provides simplified procedures that would enable even hospitals that are overloaded to participate.

Ten countries having, so far, joined the Solidarity trial: Argentina, Bahrain, Canada, France, Iran, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and Thailand.

The government is in touch with indigenous manufacturers who can produce personal protective equipment like face masks to fix the shortage that healthcare workers are facing in India.

Joint health secretary Luv Agarwal said that earlier the cloth used in PPEs was primarily imported and the disruption of the global supply chain has caused issues with availability.

The government is now looking at Indian manufacturers who can fill that gap. "Hopefully, we should be able to manage the situation," Agarwal said.

He added that the government has also identified various buyers of N95 masks across India.

The health ministry today said that the government is addressing the shortage of ventilators in the country by starting procurement from state-run firms.

A procurement of 10,000 ventilatoris have started from one of the PSUs, joint health secretary Luv Agarwal said in a press conference. Bharat Electronics Ltd. will also provide 30,000 ventilators in the next one month, he said.

The health ministry has also asked states to prepare isolation beds and dedicated hospitals for Covid19. A national task force has been constituted to deal with the virus outbreak.

Agarawal noted that in the last 24 hours there have been 75 new cases of coronavirus in India and four deaths have been reported. Majority of the deaths were elderly patients suffering from comorbid conditions like hypertension, heart disease or diabetes.

In the third Covid-19 fatality in Karnataka, a 65-year-old man who tested had positive for the coronavirus infection died in Tumakuru on Friday, a senior district official said.

The person had no travel history to any foreign country, but had gone to Delhi and returned by train earlier this month, following which he developed certain symptoms, the official said.

In a tweet, state Health and Family Welfare Minister B Sriramulu confirmed the death was due to coronavirus infection. He urged people to follow the lockdown and remain at home. A 70-year old woman and a 76-year old man had died due to the virus earlier in the state.

As many as six more people tested positive for coronavirus in Tamil Nadu on Friday, taking the total number of cases to 35 in the state, the state government said.

Of them, five people contracted the infection through contact with those tested positive for the coronavirus.

In a tweet, the National Health Mission - Tamil Nadu said: "6 new positive cases of #Covid19 in TN..." and taking "the total tally to 35 so far."

When asked by PTI, a senior health official said the total number of cases includes a man who has been discharged and another who died.

Source: PTI

As Delhi ramps up its capacity to fight the virus, chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has received a report that the national capital need to prepare for a potential stage 3.

Stage 3 or the community spread phase means that phase of the outbreak where authorities are unable to trace the origin of the virus in a patient.

A 60-year-old man, who had tested positive for coronavirus in Rajasthan's Bhilwara, has died due to co-morbid conditions of heart and kidney ailments, an official said on Friday.

With two of his relatives also testing positive for coronavirus, the total number of Covid-19 cases in the state have risen to 45. The patient had visited the private hospital in Bhilwara where doctors and nursing staff were first found to be coronavirus positive.

Co-morbidity refers to one or more diseases or conditions that occur along with another condition in the same person at the same time.

"The patient died on Thursday night. Doctors have attributed the death to his comorbid conditions," Additional Chief Secretary (health) Rohit Kumar Singh said.

This is the second death of a Covid-19 patient in the state. Earlier, an Italian tourist who was cured of the virus had later died of heart attack due to lungs and heart problem at a private hospital in state capital.

So far, 21 positive cases have been found in Bhilwara, followed by Jaipur (9), Jhunjhunu (6), Jodhpur (5), Pratapgarh (2), Pali and Sikar (one each).

Three infected people in the state have recovered.

Source: PTI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday told Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami to enforce strictly the three-week national lockdown declared to check the spread of coronavirus and ensure availability of essential commodities for the people, the state government said.

In a telephonic conversation, Modi said prohibitory orders under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code and social distancing should be rigidly enforced.

The Prime Minister sought to know from the Chief Minister about the coronavirus preventive measures undertaken by various government departments in the state, an official release said.

Palaniswami apprised Modi in detail about the steps being taken continuously by the state government against the contagion.

"Considering public good, the Prime Minister said the prohibitory orders under section 144 should be followed strictly and people should ensure social distancing," the release said.

Source: PTI

An IAS officer in Kerala has 'skipped' home quarantine after his return from Singapore nearly ten days ago and seems to have left for Bengaluru to be with his brother, prompting the state government to seek an explanation from him, a top district official said on Friday.

Kollam Sub-Collector Anupam Mishra had returned to the state on March 19 from Singapore and was advised to remain under home quarantine, as per the protocol for overseas returnees in the backdrop of coronavirus outbreak, District Collector B Abdul Nasser said.

The bureaucrat from Uttar Pradesh was on leave after his marriage and had taken permission to travel to Malaysia and Singapore.

"On his return I advised him to remain under home quarantine. Seems like he left to be with his family at Bengaluru," Nasser told PTI.

He said the state government has sought an explanation in this regard.

"We have asked him to provide his current address and travel details to Bengaluru. On his return to Kerala from the foreign trip, he had undergone, medical examination and did not show symptoms. His close family and personal staff, including gunman, are under observation," the collector said.

He, however, did not share any detail about other family members of the officer and whether they too had been put under home quarantine.

Local media reports said people in Mishra's neighbourhood informed officials after noticing no movement in his home for quite some time.

Incidentally, Kollam, is the only district in the state, which has not reported any positive case of Covid-19 so far.

Source: PTI

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) here has developed an "infection-proof fabric" to be used at hospitals to prevent hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).

The development by "Fabiosys Innovations", a start-up incubated at IIT-Delhi, comes at a time when the world is dealing with the deadly coronavirus outbreak. However, the team has been working on the project for over a year with support from the government's Department of Science and Technology.

According to official statistics from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, for every 100 hospitalised patients in developing countries, 10 acquire HAIs and the risk is even higher at the time of a coronavirus outbreak.

The team claims to have developed an affordable, novel textile-processing technology, which converts regular cotton fabric into infection-proof fabric.

"We take rolls of cotton fabric and treat it with a set of proprietary-developed chemicals under a set of particular reaction conditions, using the machinery already commonly available in textile industries. The fabric, after undergoing these processes, gains the powerful antimicrobial functionality," Samrat Mukhopadhyay, a professor at the Department of Textile and Fibre Engineering in IIT-Delhi, said.

"What is interesting about the Fabiosys' fabric is that even after washing multiple times, it does not lose its functionality. This fabric can be stitched into various articles such as bedsheets, the uniforms for patients, doctors and nurses and even curtains. The fabric satisfies the Indian washing standards in terms of number of washing. It is also completely non-toxic and affordable," he added.

IIT has collaborated with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for a pilot run of the product.

"While talking to a few patients at the AIIMS, we got to know that they became more sick after getting admitted there. When we started researching, we found that hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are a grave problem, especially in developing countries like India, where the tropical climatic conditions are suitable for the growth of bacteria.

Source: PTI

With five more persons testing positive for coronavirus infection in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, the total number of Covid-19 patients in the state went up to 135 on Friday, officials said.

On Thursday, eight persons had tested positive in the state, taking the count to 130, they said.

As five more persons tested positive for the infection- four in Nagpur city and another one in Gondia district- the number has now climbed to 135, they said.

Source: PTI

The government on Friday said it has taken several steps to ensure uninterrupted supply of oxygen to hospitals.

These steps were taken by the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization, which is an arm of the Commerce and Industry Ministry.

It has taken various measures to ensure uninterrupted supply of oxygen to hospitals and also to address the problems faced by petroleum, explosives, fireworks, and industrial gas companies due to nationwide lockdown for containment of Covid-19 pandemic.

"Instructions have been issued by PESO headquarter to all its offices to ensure grant of licences for storage and transport of medical oxygen urgently," the ministry said in a statement.

An advisory has been issued by PESO on March 25 to Principal Secretaries (Home) of all states, requesting them to allow uninterrupted transportation and manufacturing of medical oxygen and nitrous oxide.

"Validity of licences for transportation of oxygen and other gases which will expire on 31/03/2020, has been extended up to 30/06/2020. Validity of licences for storage, transportation, sale, use and manufacturing of explosives and fireworks which will expire on 31/03/2020, has been extended up to 30/09/2020," it said.

It added that fee for late renewal of licences will also not be charged.

Cylinders used for storage of compressed oxygen, CNG, LPG and other gases, which are due for statutory hydro testing on March 31, shall be deemed to be due for testing on June 30.

Further it said that pressure vessels used for storage and transportation of oxygen, LPG and other gases, which are due for statutory testing for safety relief valves and hydro testing from March 15 to June 30, shall be deemed to be due for testing on June 30.

Source: PTI

India has a total of 724 confirmed Covid-19 cases as of Friday morning, according to data provided on the Health Ministry website. This includes 66 cured and 17 who succumbed to the respiratory illness. Total number of cases have tripled in the last one week.